Macedonian Prliamentary Elections December 11th 2016

[Beagle]

If you can connect, you may watch the results as they come at the official site. Understandably, it's down a lot. Neck and neck with a slight VMRO-DPMNE advantage atm. The big story of the election so far seems to be the major number of Albanians who have crossed over to vote for the "Macedonan" SDSM.

[Beagle]

Alternative election results in Albanian, as the official page of the electoral commission seems to have gone down permanently.

[Beagle]

Hmm, the Albanian site I posted seems to have diverged from what I can find out about the official results (I am unable to connect, so I rely on second/third hand information). Then again, the official results apparently show a combined total of 104% for all parties, which is... interesting. So either the albanians are either reporting the results from the albanian-populated areas (mostly in electoral districts 5 and 6), or, more likely, are making stuff up.

The opposition friendly sources claim that the count is almost complete and the distribution shows either a 51:51 tie between VMRO and SDSM, or a 1 seat lead for the VMRO. This doesn't square very well with the official results, which show at least 13 000 votes more for the current incumbents - but they also show a 104% total.

Btw, I wonder if George Soros ever imagined his name would become a pejorative for a vast demographic across the entire Eastern Europe.

[Beagle]

And just as I post, the official site comes back to life. The Albanians seem to be in the ballpark at least - they are showing a 25k vote lead for the VMRO, while the electoral commission is on 23k (but also a bit behind).

[Beagle]

Ponta today also said that Romanian today stood against people like Soros. This is kinda cute.

I've been reading the cesspool that is Romanian and Macedonian political commentary for the past few hours, and have seen at least 40 references to poor old George...

The official site has been working pretty reliably for a while now, here are the latest results with 70% in:
VMRO-DPMNE 39.83%
DPA 2,57%
DUI 6,97%
SDSM 36,27%
Albanian Alliance 2,78%
BESA 4,33%

VMRO are projecting a 5-8 seat win, SDSM - a perfect draw. Crucially, given that there will be 4 Albanian parties represented in parliament, and given that they are all at each other's throats and there is 0% chance that they will come together as a kingmaker block, the only feasible government is VMRO-DUI. And even under the most optimistic VMRO projection, this government would rely on a 2-3 vote majority... but it doesn't look like even that is realistic, given that VMRO have been steadily shedding their lead in the past few vote dumps.

[Beagle]

The margin is narrowing. Is Skopje the reason?

Yes, just under 80% of Skopje is in, while everywhere else has reported in the 90s already. Based on that, the SDSM stands to gain another seat or two.

woah...that narrowing.

can someone tell me if this means VMRO and DUI and some tiny party i don't know of are going to create a new government anyway?

Well, nobody knows for sure, but it's unlikely that the votes will be there for VMRO and DUI to form a stable government on their own. The remaining Albanian parties consider DUI their mortal enemy and will commit electoral suicide if they (re-)join them in a coalition supporting a government that the Albanian areas have rejected. Of course, this does not mean that some deputies may not be bought convinced, but it's unlikely that such a government can last too long. Some sort of grand coalition is now muted, but the VMRO-friendly media I've been watching seems to support a minority government and if that is not possible - new elections alongside the scheduled local elections in the spring of 2017.