Macedonia results

Image from Reuters

The ruling (centre-right) government in Macedonia has declared victory: it looks like they're on about 39% to the oppositions 32%.

The last time around (2009) it was 55% to 15%, so clearly there has been a major swing to the opposition. Quite a lot of it seems to have come late, though as far as I can tell the polling was never very good.

The government will now go from being majority to bringing in a coalition partner. Since they hate each other with a fiery passion, that probably won't be the Social Democrats- everyone seems to agree that it's most likely one of the parties that cater specifically to ethnic Albanians. The second-largest Albanian party has been in coalition with the government before, but it might not be big enough to get the coalition over the 50% line.

So the Social Democrats massively improved their score, the Albanians hold a lot of cards in government formation, and the Conservative Nikola Greuvski gets to stay prime minister. It's been said that the last election in the UK was one that every party lost, but this looks like one where everybody won.