Presidential candidates enter final week of campaign before second round of elections
SDSM’s candidate Stevo Pendarovski and VMRO-DPMNE’s candidate Gordana Siljanovska Davkova are expected to hold debates and rallies throughout the week.
Both candidates during the Easter holidays put their campaigns on hold, but they met with citizens and visited several places of worship.
The campaign ends on Friday at midnight, which marks the start of election silence. Sick people, inmates and people in house arrest, as well as expats will have the chance to cast their votes on Saturday.
The Sunday’s run-off will be declared valid only if at least 40% of the registered voters take part. About 1,800,000 people are eligible to vote.
Unless the presidential elections are invalid, it has been announced that political stakeholders are mulling constitutional changes to allow the head of state to be elected in Parliament, instead of in direct elections.
PM Zoran Zaev recently has said that early parliamentary polls could take place alongside a re-run of the presidential elections if turnout in the May 5 elections was low.
VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickovski has said he expected voters’ turnout on May 5 to exceed the threshold.