North Macedonia to hold presidential runoff on May 5

North Macedonia will hold the second round of its presidential election on May 5, since none of the three candidates have secured over 50 percent of the votes to win the race.

The country's governing coalition candidate Stevo Pendarovski gained the largest number of votes in the first round of the presidential elections on April 21, according to the State Election Commission (SEC).

The SEC website showed that with over 99 percent of the ballots counted, Pendarovski has secured 42.84 percent of the votes.

Pendarovski is followed by the main opposition VMRO-DPMNE Party candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova with 42.24 percent of the votes.

The only Albanian candidate Blerim Reka has received 10.58 percent of the votes.