One killed, former Albanian separatist leader arrested during Macedonian elections
One person was killed, eight were wounded and eleven arrested during the Sunday parliamentary elections in Macedonia, won largely by the ethnic Macedonian nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, June 02, 2008
Among the arrested is Agim Krasniqi, a former leader of the Albanian separatists during the 2001 conflict in Macedonia.
The incidents occurred in Aracinovo, an Albanian-populated village near Skopje, as well as in the Albanian-dominated region near Tetovo, in northwestern Macedonia.
The ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) blamed the rival Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and the police for "provocations, violence and psychological terror" and demanded a repeat vote in the troubled areas.
The two parties have been on bad terms since 2006, when the DUI, which won most of the Albanian votes, was left out of a coalition government in favour of the DPA.
The violence on voting day began soon after polls opened.
Scuffles broke out in several Albanian areas and a small explosive device was thrown at an empty café. Voting was stopped in the town of Aracinovo after the gun battle.
Police said officers went to the town after local monitors reported the arrival of men with machine guns. One gunman was killed and two others were injured.
But the DUI said the incident was initiated by plainclothes police, which stopped a convoy and started shooting.
In Skopje's Cair neighbourhood, another shooting took place outside a polling station.
One DUI official was in critical condition and five other people were wounded, police said.
The nationalist ethnic Macedonian party VMRO-DPMNE won over 45 percent of the vote, twice as much as the opposition Social-Democrats.
The two Albanian parties split the ethnic vote of their community.
