Skopje - Georgi Ivanov, the candidate of Macedonia's ruling party in the country's presidential elections, is heading to the second-round vote with a huge lead over his opposition rivals, results released one day after the first round of voting showed Monday.

With some 40 per cent of the ballots counted, Ivanov, nominated by the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, had more than twice as many votes than his nearest challenger, the Social Democrats' candidate Ljubomir Frckovski.

Frckovski overcame a surprisingly strong showing by former interior minister and VMRO official Ljube Boskoski, now an independent candidate.

The incumbent, Social Democrat Branko Crvenkovski, did not seek re-election in Sunday's polls.

The private monitoring agency MOST projected Ivanov collecting 34.8 per cent and Frckovski 20.1 per cent of the votes cast. It said the projection was accurate to within 3 per cent, so Boskoski, with 14.8 per cent, was out of the race.

The run-off has been scheduled scheduled for April 5.

More than 51 per cent of the 1.8 million voters turned out Sunday for presidential, mayoral and local elections. To the relief of Skopje officials, the day passed without violence and trouble typically marring earlier polls.

Last June, VMRO won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections after a campaign severely marred by violence, mostly in the region dominated by Macedonia's large, restive ethnic Albanian minority.

That election day, gunfights left one person dead and eight injured, prompting the European Union to keep Macedonia's membership candidacy on hold. (dpa)