- Title: MACEDONIA: VOTING BEGINS IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.
- Date: 28th April 2004
- Summary: (U3) SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (APRIL 28, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WS: DOOR TO POLLING STATION BEING OPENED. 0.07 2. MV/CU: FIRST VOTERS REGISTERING TO VOTE, COLLECTING POLLING CARD. (2 SHOTS) 0.18 3. MV: VOTERS GOING TO MARK BALLOT PAPER IN POLLING BOOTH. 0.20 4. CU/TILT DOWN: VOTER DEPOSITING BALLOT PAPER IN BOX. 0.29 5. CU/TILT UP: ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHECKING VOTER'S I.D. 0.38 6. VARIOUS: OF PEOPLE VOTING. (2 SHOTS) 1.04 7. MV: MAN WALKING INTO POLLING STATION. 1.11 (W5) SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (APRIL 28, 2004) (REUTERS) 8. MV: SASKO KEDEV, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE MAIN OPPOSITIONAL PARTY VMRO-DPMNE, ARRIVING AT POLLING STATION. 1.19 9. CU: ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHECKING KEDEV'S DOCUMENTS. 1.22 10. VARIOUS: OF KEDEV CASTING HIS VOTE. (2 SHOTS) 1.40 11. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) SASKO KEDEV, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE MAIN OPPOSITIONAL PARTY VMRO-DPMNE, SAYING: "From today's elections I expect to have, Macedonia to have a new president who will be elected through a fair and democratic procedure. This is the issue today, to have fair and democratic procedure and whoever is elected to be president of republic of Macedonia." KEDEV LEAVES. 2.01 12. VARIOUS: KEDEV LEAVING AND BEING CLAPPED AS HE GETS INTO CAR. (2 SHOTS) 2.13 13. TRACK: BRANKO CRVENKOVSKI, MACEDONIAN PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE RULING SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (SDSM), ARRIVING AT POLLING STATION, PEOPLE APPLAUDING. 2.23 14. SCU: CRVENKOVSKI CASTING HIS VOTE AND POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS. 2.40 15. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Macedonian) BRANKO CRVENKOVSKI, MACEDONIAN PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE RULING SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC (SDSM), SAYING: "I'm also convinced that the first round victory will now be confirmed." 2.53 16. TRACK: CRVENKOVSKI LEAVING. 2.59 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 13th May 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
- Country: Macedonia
- Reuters ID: LVACSM1HKBTX44Q7JJI94Q7A9TQI
- Story Text: Macedonians go to the polls in presidential
elections.
Macedonians went to the polls to elect a new
president on Wednesday (April 28), with pro-Western Prime
Minister Branko Crvenkovski the frontrunner to succeed late
Boris Trajkovski, who died in a plane crash in February.
Social Democrats leader Crvenkovski clearly outpolled
centre-right challenger Sasko Kedev in a first round of
voting two weeks ago, but failed to win an absolute
majority.
Voting in their run-off got under way at 7 a.m. (0500
GMT) and was due to end twelve hours later, with early
unofficial results expected late the same evening.
Crvenkovski vowed during the campaign to work for
membership of the European Union, which Skopje applied to
join last month. He also aims to cement peace after an
ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency brought Macedonia
close to civil war three years ago.
Kedev, a 42-year-old heart surgeon who runs for the
nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, promised to tackle corruption
and poverty on the road towards the wealthy EU.
"From today's elections I expect to have, Macedonia to
have a new president who will be elected through a fair and
democratic procedure. This is the issue today, to have fair
and democratic procedure and whoever is elected to be
president of republic of Macedonia," he said after voting.
Macedonia's third head of state since independence from
old Yugoslavia thirteen years ago may also be tested by
events across the border in volatile Kosovo, the U.N.-run
province whose majority Albanians demand independence from
Serbia.
Turnout could become the biggest hurdle in
Crvenkovski's bid to win the presidency and hand the
premiership to a political ally, as more than half the
electorate must cast ballots for the vote to be valid.
He expressed confidence the vote would succeed. Failure
to elect a new head of state would plunge the ethnically
divided country into political uncertainty.
"I'm also convinced that the first round victory will
now be confirmed," the 41-year-old political veteran told
reporters as he voted in the capital Skopje.
After three hours of voting at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT), 6.7
percent of the electorate had cast ballots, up from 5.1
percent on April 14, when turnout reached 56 percent and
none of four candidates won an absolute majority, forcing a
second round between the two frontrunners. If the election
were to fail, it would need to be repeated from scratch in
40 days.
Although the post of president post holds limited
powers, Trajkovski was widely credited in the West for
playing a key role in ending the six-month conflict in 2001.
Crvenkovski's Social Democrats ousted VMRO-DPMNE in the
following year's parliamentary polls and formed a
government with ex-guerrillas who had agreed to lay down
arms in return for greater minority rights.
Peace held firm both in the face of Trajkovski's death
and last month's explosion of ethnic violence in Kosovo.
On Wednesday, two men armed with handguns burst into a
polling station and smashed a ballot box in a village near
the former flashpoint town of Tetovo, but voting was smooth
elsewhere in the landlocked country of two million,
election officials said.
The authorities have been less successful in reducing
unemployment of over 30 per cent and in attracting
badly-needed foreign investors to one of Europe's poorest
countries.
The economy showed growth of three percent last year,
up from 0.7 percent in 2002 and a 4.5 percent fall in 2001,
but this has yet to substantially boost living standards,
the European Commission said in a report last month.
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