North Macedonia is holding this Sunday (October 19) the eighth local elections since independence. Citizens will vote in all 80 municipalities of the country and in the City of Skopje to elect new mayors and members of municipal councils.
The list of voters includes 1,832,415 voters who are expected to vote in 3,474 polling stations in the country for 309 candidates for mayor and 576 lists of candidates for members of municipal councils, or a total of 10,490 candidates.
22 parties, 19 coalitions and 119 voter groups, i.e. independent candidates, participate in the elections.
The city of Skopje has the largest number of candidates for mayor – 16.
The elections will be monitored by 1,451 observers – 807 domestic and 644 international observers.
Voting started at 7:00 am and ends at 7:00 pm, but may be extended if there are voters remaining at the polling station at 7:00 pm, or if voting is interrupted during the voting period by decision of the MEC or the SEC. If voting is interrupted for more than one hour, it will continue for the same period as the interruption, but not more than three hours.
At 19:00, the polling stations close. Voters present at the polling station are allowed to vote. The voting center in which all citizens registered in the List of Voters have voted can be closed before 19:00, with the prior consent of the competent MEC, but the counting of votes must not start before 19:00.
Citizens will be able to vote only once and vote for the mayor and council in the municipalities, and in the capital for the mayor where the citizens live and for the City of Skopje, as well as for the councils. So, in Skopje, voters will receive four ballot papers.
On Saturday, sick people and people who could not vote, people in old people’s homes, as well as those who are in custody or serving a prison sentence, voted.
The local elections of 2025 are the fourth in which mayors and municipal councils are elected simultaneously in all administrative units.
Voters are identified with a valid ID card or passport and biometric identification device.
According to CEC data, 3 percent of voters exercised their right to vote by 9:15.
In the second press conference, the State Election Commission (SEC) informed that the participation until 11:15 in the territory of the country, according to data from 3,139 polling stations, is 9.3%.
According to the data of the CEC, until 13:00, the participation was recorded at 20.12%.
