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Voting ends in troubled Macedonian snap poll

Other News Materials 1 June 2008 22:31 (UTC +04:00)

Voting has ended Sunday evening in Macedonia's snap parliamentary elections that were marred by deadly violence among supporters of ethnic Albanian parties.

One person was killed, another was fighting for his life and eight others were wounded in a firefight in an Albanian village near the capital Skopje. Incidents there forced the closure of 20 polling stations, election authorities said.

Election violations, disappearance of ballot boxes, voting by proxy and intimidation were reported elsewhere in north-western Macedonia, which is dominated by the Albanians, who make up 25 per cent of the 2.1 million inhabitants.

Outgoing Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's centre-right coalition was expected to win the most votes, but not enough for an absolute majority in the 120-seat assembly.

The centre-left coalition of Social Democrat Radmila Sekerinska was tipped to win 11 per cent of the votes, three times fewer than Gruevski's bloc.

Among the Albanians, the opposition Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) was leading the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) in pre-election surveys.

The DUI said it would not recognize the election result in at least seven polling units that were plagued by violence and irregularities, dpa reported.

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