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DE RUEHSQ #0146/01 0921551
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 021551Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY SKOPJE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8140
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY 0504
RUESEN/SKOPJE BETA PRIORITY
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SKOPJE 000146 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958 N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV MK
SUBJECT: MACEDONIA ELECTIONS ROUND TWO: ON TRACK BUT TENSIONS 
HIGHER 
 
1)(SBU) Summary: Barring any surprises Gjorge Ivanov appears set to 
be Macedonia's next president after the April 5 runoff, giving the 
ruling VMRO further control of the instruments of state.  A number 
of tight mayoral races and widespread allegations of voter 
intimidation and vote-buying have created a tense environment 
leading up to the second round.   The State Electoral Commission 
(SEC) is late in making decisions on which polling stations will 
face round-one re-runs instead of round two elections.  Ambassador 
Reeker has continued rigorous outreach to the most hotly contested 
municipalities to diffuse tension and encourage citizens to build on 
the on the progress made towards free and fair elections in the 
first round.  The Embassy will again have a robust monitoring effort 
for the second round, with 24 teams covering all areas of the 
country.  End Summary. 
 
Presidential Run-Off Scenarios 
 
2)(SBU) Three possible outcomes exist for Macedonia's presidential 
run-off between ruling VMRO-backed Gjorge Ivanov and opposition SDSM 
backed Ljubomir Frckoski.  With Ivanov's commanding lead (339,706 
votes to 197,703 votes in the March 22 first round) and PM 
Gruevski's backing, an Ivanov win is most likely, Frckoski 
prevailing much less so.  A third scenario is a failure to reach the 
40% turnout threshold mandated by the constitution.  Various 
e-Albanian leaders have reported low motivation within their 
community to support either candidate, and DPA already declared a 
boycott of the second round presidential election.  Recent public 
feuding between VMRO and SDSM has also led to speculation that SDSM 
could even declare a surprise boycott of the second round.  This is 
considered unlikely, and we believe that a mutual support deal 
between VMRO and e-Albanian coalition partner DUI for the second 
round should help to achieve the 40% threshold.  We, along with 
others in the International Community, have been encouraging 
"practicing democracy" through voter turnout. 
 
Tight Second Round Mayoral Races 
 
3)(SBU) Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, Ohrid, Veles, Gevgelija, and 
Berovo all feature mayoral races that are either very close, 
considered "must wins" by the competing parties, or both.  Tetovo's 
race is a dead heat between DPA's Bexheti and DUI incumbent Lika, 
who garnered 39% of the vote each in the first round.  As the 
ethnic-Albanian stronghold of Macedonia, both parties consider 
Tetovo a must win.  In Gostivar, another important e-Albanian 
municipality, DUI incumbent Nevzat Bejta faces a virtually 
insurmountable deficit to returning political star Rufi Osmani 
(independent), but in spite of this deficit DUI seems determined to 
pull out all the stops to maintain control of the municipality and 
halt Osmani's return to political relevance. 
 
Struga, a recent hotspot of inter-ethnic tension, features a run-off 
indicative of its make up.  DUI incumbent Ramiz Merko maintains a 
modest lead over wealthy e-Macedonian/Muslim "Torbeshi" candidate 
Fiat Canoski of the Party for European Future (PEI).  The e-Albanian 
community would consider an e-Macedonian win in Struga a major blow. 
  The Ohrid race between SDSM incumbent Aleksandar Petreski and 
VMRO's Kiril Trendafilov is very close, at 41% to 39% in the first 
round, and VMRO is putting maximum efforts into trying to win this 
coveted tourist town (which holds considerable nationalist/Orthodox 
Christian symbolism).  In Veles, popular Liberal Democratic Party 
(LDP) candidate Ace Kocevski maintained a narrow first-round lead 
over VMRO MP Goran Petrov (49%-43%).   National level party 
deal-making may have an impact on this race, as LDP's public 
announcement that it will not support SDSM's Frckovski in the second 
round of presidential elections may cost Kocevski his SDSM backing 
in Veles mayoral race.  In addition to sending MP's in to take on 
popular incumbents, VMRO is also fighting hard for first-time wins 
in traditionally SDSM strongholds in eastern Macedonia, including 
rustic Berovo near the Bulgarian border and the Greek-border town of 
Gevgelija.  VMRO led by 10 percentage points in Gevgelija in the 
first round, and narrowly trailed (49%- 47%) in Berovo. 
 
Second Round Allegations Abound 
 
4)(SBU) Candidates have made widespread allegations of vote buying, 
voter intimidation, voter blackmail, phone threats and vote tracking 
schemes in the lead up to the second round.  As with the first 
round, these allegations may prove exaggerated but merit close 
monitoring.  Some are definitely credible.  Opposition parties, both 
e-Macedonian and e-Albanian, have made repeated allegations against 
VMRO and DUI for using state institutions to blackmail voters. 
Rumors allege that these institutions are blackmailing not only 
their employees but attempting to influence the votes of their 
employees' friends and families by threatening their jobs.  Post has 
also received reports spanning numerous municipalities that 
government officials have been going door to door threatening to cut 
 
SKOPJE 00000146  002 OF 003 
 
 
off health care and social welfare benefits to voters who do not 
vote for the local GoM backed candidate.  All four e-Albanian 
candidates in Tetovo and Gostivar have accused their opponents of 
engaging in large-scale vote buying operations, claiming that votes 
are going for as much as 100 Euros in some cases.  In Tetovo the 
vote buying is rumored to be so endemic that opposing candidate 
activists are showing up at individual residences just hours apart 
with vote buying propositions.  Vote buying allegations have been 
made by candidates in a number of other municipalities as well.  In 
Shuto Orizari, the only Roma-governed municipality in Europe, both 
candidates have accused each other of vote-buying in after midnight 
door-to-door visits.  Post even received reports that the Ministry 
of Agriculture is buying votes throughout rural Macedonia with cut 
firewood. 
 
Government abuse of its ministers and police in election activities 
has also been cited as a major concern by the opposition.  Most 
alarming of these are claims that Minister of Interior Gordana 
Jankuloska has allegedly been directing VMRO's campaign activities 
in the hotly contested and currently SDSM-controlled municipality of 
Ohrid.  In Struga, VMRO-backed challenger Fiat Canovski (PEI) 
initially expressed concerns over the incumbent's control over local 
police force but those concerns have flip-flopped since the MOI sent 
a special police unit there to intimidate DUI voters (Struga is the 
only municipality where DUI and VMRO are backing opposing 
candidates). 
 
What's on the Ballot? 
 
5)(SBU) The State Electoral Commission (SEC), given high marks by 
ODIHR for generally well-administered elections, especially in light 
of the surprise snow storm that made some polling stations 
inaccessible and the challenges of the first-ever jointly 
administered presidential and municipal elections, seems to have 
slowed its pace of work ahead of the second round, leaving some 
voters in the dark about what will be on their municipal ballots on 
April 5.  The SEC missed the 48-hour deadline for decisions on 
parties' appeals of first round results in certain polling stations, 
and also stalled on assessing the impact on the outcome of municipal 
elections of the polling stations (134) that did not open due to 
weather conditions.  Now awaiting the decision of the Administrative 
Court on appeals of its delayed decisions, the SEC is expected to 
meet April 1 to make a final decision on which polling stations will 
have re-runs of the first round of municipal council and mayoral 
races on April 5.  These decisions were made five days earlier in 
the June 2008 elections, despite substantially more appeals.   The 
SEC is expected to call for re-runs of mayoral races in nearly 70 
polling stations, and for municipal council reruns in 120 polling 
stations.  The President of the SEC told us this week that given 
these delays, it will be difficult to inform voters in a timely 
fashion of what will be on the ballot-first round or second round 
elections-- in their particular polling stations. 
 
Embassy Monitoring for Round Two 
 
6)(SBU) Embassy Skopje will deploy 24 monitoring teams throughout 
the country, and will maintain a command center at the Embassy, as 
well as an RSO team within the Ministry of Interior.  The largest 
concentration of teams will be in the Skopje-Tetovo-Gostivar region, 
but we will send teams to cover key races all over the country, 
including Ohrid, Struga, Veles, Berovo and Gevgelija.  In the first 
round, Embassy teams were an integral part of the overall 
international effort, often getting information ahead of the larger 
ODIHR effort.  We maintained constant coordination with the ODIHR 
teams as well as other missions' monitoring teams and the domestic 
observer organization MOST throughout the first round.  The same 
type of cooperation is planned for the second round, though ODIHR is 
expected to have only about half as many monitors for the second 
round as the first, only about 125. 
 
Ambassador Continues to Emphasize Free and Fair Elections 
 
7)(SBU) Following up on his nationwide tour in preparation for the 
first round of elections, Ambassador Reeker has returned to many of 
the same municipalities where the races are particularly contested 
to address the aforementioned issues and encourage additional 
progress towards free and fair elections through the second round. 
On March 30 the Ambassador held a public, joint meeting with the 
candidates and Municipal Election Council (MEC) presidents and 
deputies of Ohrid and Struga to defuse tensions and obtain their 
renewed commitment to free and fair elections in the second round. 
On March 31, Ambassador Reeker held a public meeting with the 
candidates and MEC members in Tetovo with the same goal and on April 
2 he met with the candidates and MEC in Shuto Orizari.  The 
Ambassador will also continue his outreach through the media (sep 
reporting). 
 
SKOPJE 00000146  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
REEKER