Skopje - The ruling nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party's candidate Georgi Ivanov was heading to certain victory in the Macedonian presidential election runoff, after the vote barely survived a boycott by the Albanian minority.

While Ivanov was steadily collecting two ballots to each one won by his rival, the opposition Social Democrat's Ljubomir Frckoski, turnout met the legally required 40-per-cent threshold by a razor- thin margin.

According to the state election commission, 40.24 per cent of the roughly 1.8 million registered voters had cast ballots, meaning a repeat election was averted. The commission counted 220,000 votes for Ivanov and 110,000 for Frckoski.

Ivanov's triumph - he would be Macedonia's fourth president since it split from the former Yugoslavia 18 years ago - cements the authority of VMRO, which won parliamentary elections in June by a landslide. That election was marred by deadly violence and massive irregularities.

Unlike then, the presidential elections - held along with local polls - passed without violence. The first-round vote on March 22 was nearly flawless, though some violations were reported Sunday by international and local observers.

Sunday's vote again showed that Macedonia was a divided country.

While even the majority Slavic Macedonians demonstrated apathy amid economic hardship and political problems, turnout in areas of predominantly Albanians, a minority with more than 25-per-cent of the population, was weak or worse.

Albanian voters did participate in the first round, when several of Albanian candidates were in contention to become head of state, but the minority largely abstained in the runoff between two Slavs, Ivanov and Frckoski. Turnout two weeks ago was 58 per cent.

Macedonia was on the verge of a civil war eight years ago, when Albanians launched an insurgency to win more rights. While the conflict was ended through a peace-and-reform deal brokered by the European Union, ethnic partition and tensions persist.

After making enough progress in the years after the conflict to earn formal EU membership candidate status in 2005, Macedonia has since been stalled due to flawed elections, lagging reforms and corruption.

Macedonian leaders had hoped that a good election could lead to a date for the start of accession talks with EU.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitoring mission was due to release its preliminary report on the Macedonian elections on Monday in Skopje.

Even with a positive report on the elections and even if Macedonia was to persuade much of the EU that it deserves to move closer to membership, the diplomatically crippling row with Athens over the name Macedonia, which Greece claims for its northern province, remains on the unresolved.

The conflict over the name already cost Macedonia an invitation to join NATO a year ago and is certain to block its closer ties with the EU, particularly as the nationalists show no sign of giving in to Greek demands.

At the same time, many Macedonians fear that without quick accession to NATO and the EU, their country may disintegrate under the pressure of ethnic tensions, as Yugoslavia did starting two decades ago. dpa