Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevksi has scored an overwhelming victory in Sunday's general election and will get more say in the country's parliament.
The Electoral Commission of Macedonia said with 98 percent of the votes counted, VMRO-DPMNE led by Gruevski had garnered 47 percent of the vote, against 23 percent for its nearest rivals, the Social Democratic Union.
When they are translated into people, it means that Gruevski's party is expected to win up to 64 seats in the 120-member parliament, while its main rival the Social Democrats will have less than 28 seats.
Gruevski has promised to put Macedonia back on track to NATO and the EU, but the incoming government will face an uphill task achieving these goals.
Although Gruevski's party is set to get a majority in the parliament, he is expected to seek an ethnic Albanian party as his coalition partner.
He will do this partly to strengthen his majority in the parliament and partly to instill calm into the restive ethnic Albanian minority and bring them into the political mainstream.
Ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of Macedonia's 2.1 million people. The Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) in the outgoing government is less popular than the Albanian opposition Democratic Union for Integration (DUI).
The two Albanian rival parties have been at loggerheads since 2006, when the DUI won the most Albanian votes in parliamentary elections but was left in opposition while the DPA was invited into the governing coalition.
Analysts said great care was needed in the post-election coalition building so as not to foment divisions like in 2006. To keep Macedonia on the path to EU and NATO membership could depend on securing the support of an Albanian partner who can guarantee peace.
