Skopje - The ruling nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party's candidate Georgi Ivanov was leading his rival from the opposition Social Democratic Union, Ljubomir Frckoski, by a large margin in the Sunday's presidential election run-off, the state election commission said.

According to preliminary figures, Ivanov had 200,000 votes to Frckoski's 102,000, accoring to the commission. The figures were in line with pre-election surveys, which predicted Ivanov' would win two votes for every one to Frckoski.

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.

Skopje  - The ruling party's presidential Georgi Ivanov took a convincing lead in the first round of Macedonia's elections Sunday, with twice the number of votes as his nearest rival in early vote results.

With 15 per cent of the ballots counted, Ivanov had 38.49 per cent, more than twice as much as his nearest rival. The turnout among the 1.8 million registered voters was 51.68 per cent, the election commission said.