BERLIN — The first general election in North Macedonia since the country changed its name and resolved a longstanding dispute with neighboring Greece has ended with no clear winner, leaving the country’s future diplomatic trajectory in the balance. The center-left Social Democrats emerged as the strongest party, taking 36.3 percent of the vote with nearly 90 percent of ballots counted. The Social Democrats’ closest rival, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE, won about 34.9 percent, meaning that it could still gain power with the support of smaller parties representing the country’s ethnic Albanian minority. ”It’s still on the precipice,” said Petar Arsovski, a political analyst and polling expert based in North Macedonia. The muddy result reflects the ambivalence many Macedonians feel toward Zoran Zaev, the Social Democrats’ leader.

Source: International New York Times July 16, 2020 00:00 UTC