On Saturday, VMRO-DPMNE promoted its mayoral candidates. “Our obligation is to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people. Macedonia and its interests, not positions, are what matters to us”, the ruling party’s leader, PM Hristijan Mickoski, stated.
When it comes to SDSM, its leader, Venko Filipce expects a positive campaign. He stressed that his party would offer honest candidates that had a vision and solid programme to develop municipalities. Part of participants in the local election campaign have signed a fair and democratic elections code, saying they will not pressure administration employees and refrain from hate speech.
The campaign for the first round will start on Monday (29 September) and last until 17 October (at midnight) when the election silence period will start. According to the State Election Commission (SEC), a total of 1,832,415 people will have the right to vote.
The voter registry includes 1,717,803 voters, while there are also 112,000 people entitled to vote that are temporarily working or staying abroad, 2,162 people that were imprisoned or detained, and 450 people part of nursing homes.
At its session on Friday, the SEC also stated that it had received four requests for election observation from the Georgia-based Electoral Systems Development, Reform, and Training Centre, the Slovak Embassy in North Macedonia, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission of Ukraine, and Skopje-based Romalitico.
Also, in an interview with MIA, SEC President Boris Kondarko stated that the elections being held in the best democratic atmosphere possible was in everybody’s interest.