A presidential election in North Macedonia that gave voters another chance to express an opinion on their country’s new name will go to a runoff after turnout in the first round of voting Sunday was too low for a candidate to win outright, election officials said.
The May 5 runoff is inevitable because the small European country’s election law requires a candidate to get 50% plus one of registered voters, not just voters who cast ballots for president, to be elected in the first round. The state electoral commission reported the turnout Sunday was 41.9%.
With about 97 percent of polling stations reporting results, Stevo Pendarovski and Gordana Siljanovska Davkova were in a close contest for the most support, the state electoral commission announced shortly before midnight (2300 GMT). Pendarovski, the joint candidate of the ruling Social Democrats and 30 other parties, held a slight lead from the unfinished tally, receiving 42.68% of the partial vote to Siljanovska’s 42.55%.