VMRO DMPNE is the winner of the parliamentary elections held on December 11 in Macedonia. The party of Nikola Gruevski wins 51 mandates in Parliament, two more than the opposition party of Zoran Zaev. The 20 remaining mandates were divided between four Albanian political parties.

BDI won 10 MPs in Parliament, new political movement Besa 5 MPs, ALEANCA 3 MPs and PDSH 2 MPs.

The head of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party, Nikola Gruevski, claimed victory for his party through a speech addressed to his supporters.

Of 88.61 per cent of the processed votes, VMRO DPMNE won 434,000 votes, opposed to 415,000 votes for the SDMS. This makes VMRO DPMNE the winner at these elections. This is the tenth victory for the party.

The surprise in the Albanian bloc is the strong showing of the newly formed BESA party, which came very close to the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration.

Preliminary incomplete results suggest the DUI has won 7.33 per cent of the total vote, while BESA won 4.48 per cent. Some projections show that this translates to eight or nine MPs for the DUI and at least five for BESA in the 123-seat parliament.

By so doing, BESA has totally wiped out the Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, traditionally one of the four biggest parties in Macedonia. The DPA won only 2.58 per cent of the votes which would translate into 2 MPs, preliminary data from the State Electoral Commission show.