Skopje  - The nationalist candidate Georgi Ivanov won the Macedonian presidential run-off with nearly twice as many votes as his rival, Ljubomir Frckoski, the state election commission said Monday.

Ivanov, put forward by the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party, collected 437,000 votes while Frckoski, the runner of the opposition Social Democratic Union, collected 252,000.

Turnout was low, barely surpassing the 40-per-cent mark required by law for a legal election. With nearly all the ballots accounted for, the turnout was 40.8 per cent, the commission said.

The low voter participation owed to apathy among the majority Slavic Macedonian voters and because of a boycott by the Albanian minority, which makes up 25 to 30 per cent of the population. (dpa)