MACEDONIA ELECTIONS ROUND TWO: ON TRACK BUT TENSIONS

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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

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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).

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REEKER