Macedonian opposition slams elections

The main opposition party in Macedonia refuses to recognize results of the country’s twin parliamentary and presidential elections.

“A few minutes after the polls closed, I’m here to say that SDSM and our opposition coalition will not recognize the election process, neither the presidential nor the parliamentary,” Zoran Zaev, leader of the center-left SDSM, told reporters on Sunday.

The leader also accused Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s conservative government of “systematic abuse of the whole state system for their party interests, enormous pressure on civil servants, intimidation of the owners of (privately owned) companies and impudent misuse of the state broadcaster and most of the private media.”

This came after Macedonia’s ruling VMRO-DPMNE claimed a landslide victory late Sunday in parliamentary and presidential votes.

Polling stations opened on Sunday morning in Macedonia and closed at 7 p.m. local time on the same day as around 1.7 million eligible voters stood in line to cast their ballots.