Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski described the third round of local elections as fair, while international observers recommended changing election legislation to avoid a repetition of irregularities.
Based on Sunday's election results and the results of the two previous election rounds, Commission spokesman Zoran Tanevski said that the ruling coalition, led by the Social Democratic Alliance, had won mayoral posts in 36 municipalities, including one in Skopje. The opposition coalition, led by VMRO-DPMNE, won mayoral posts in 31 municipalities, including five in the capital Skopje.
The ruling party of ethnic Albanians, the Democratic Union for Integration, won the polls in 15 municipalities, including one in Skopje, while the Albanian opposition bloc (the Democratic Party of Albanians and the Party of Democratic Prosperity) won the elections in two municipalities in the first round, because it boycotted the other two rounds.
International observers registered some irregularities in the third election round that had already been noticed in the first two rounds and recommended amending the existing election legislation to prevent irregularities from recurring in the future.
Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski described the third election round as very successful.