Shootings mar Macedonia polls
Election commission suspends voting in two predominantly ethnic Albanian areas.
About 13,000 police were deployed at polling stations for Sunday’s vote after two ethnic Albanian parties blamed each other for violence during the campaign.
Separately, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), the largest ethnic Albanian opposition party, said the party’s headquarters in the capital had come under fire.
There has also been reports of ballot-stuffing and allegations of fraud in villages around Skopje during the early hours of voting.
Centre-right lead
The centre-right VMRO-DPMNE party of Nikola Gruevski, the prime minister, has a sizeable lead and is expected to win, according to opinion polls.
Before voting got under way international monitors recorded 13 reports of attacks against the DUI, including an incident in which attackers shot at the car of Ali Ahmeti, the party leader.
Albanian support
The DPA withdrew its support for his government in mid-March, in protest at its failure to recognise the independence of Kosovo, which stalled the government’s efforts to continue with integration into the European Union.
If Gruevski fails to win a landlside he is likely to need the support of the DPA or the DUI to form a government.