Voting for the dual elections which are held today Wednesday at North Macedonianamely the parliamentary elections and the second round of the presidential elections.

In the parliamentary elections, according to all estimates, the nationalist opposition party VMRO-DPMNE, which opposes the Prespa Agreement, expected to score big win and to prevail over the ruling Social Democratic Party (SDSM) by a very wide margin.

However, VMRO-DPMNE will hardly extract self-reliance, and will need to ally with some Albanian party to form a government. After all, an Albanian party always participates in all the governments of North Macedonia, among other things to maintain the still fragile international balance in the country. The Albanians they make up 25% of the population of North Macedonia.

As for the second round of the presidential elections, there things are clear, since the VMRO-DPMNE candidate, Gordana Silianowska, in the first round of the presidential election held on 24 April, in which seven candidates participated won by twice the margin of her main opponent, the Social Democrat outgoing president of the country, Stevo Pendarovski (Silanovska received 40% compared to 20% obtained by Pendarovski). All that remains today is for the VMRO-DPMNE candidate to validate her victory and become the new president of North Macedonia for the next five years.

In order for the second round of the presidential elections to be considered valid, the participation rate must exceed 40% (in the first round of the presidential elections, the participation rate was close to 50%). Otherwise, the presidential elections are canceled and re-announced. There is no binding participation limit for parliamentary elections.

By 15:00 local time (four hours before the polls closed), the participation rate in the second round of the presidential elections stood at 32%, while the corresponding in the parliamentary elections at 37%, the National Electoral Commission of North Macedonia announced.

According to all estimates, the turnout in the second round of the presidential election will exceed 40%, and in this way the condition for the validity of the presidential election will be fulfilled.

The electorate in North Macedonia amounts to 1.8 million voters. The polls for the double elections set up will be closed at 19:00 local time (20:00 Greek time).The first indicative results are expected to be known late in the evening.