Macedonians set for peaceful elections

MACEDONIA: President Branko Crvenkovski has urged Macedonians to conduct a free, fair and peaceful general election today, five years after the country almost collapsed into civil war, as the West keeps a close eye on the country as an aspiring member of the EU and Nato.

Although the offices of various political parties have been hit by hand-grenades, raked by gunfire and rammed by bulldozers ahead of the vote, most election monitors are satisfied with a campaign in which no one has died during factional skirmishes.

"We must not allow anyone's ambitions to be more important than the interests and future of Macedonia," Mr Crvenkovski said in an address broadcast across the former Yugoslav republic of 2.1 million people.

Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski faces a tough fight to stay in power, after losing ground to the VMRO-DPMNE party, which was ousted from government after seven months of clashes in 2001 between security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

A peace deal brokered by the EU and Nato saw the rebels disarm in return for more power and rights for the Albanian minority, which makes up a quarter of Macedonia's mostly impoverished population.

But while one rebel faction joined Mr Buckovski's ruling coalition and claims steady progress on minority rights, other Albanian groups complain reform has been too slow and too shallow.

Ethnic tension still bubbles in a country bordering Albania and Serbia's restive province of Kosovo, but most Macedonians want above all to see corruption crushed, poverty eased and 35 per cent unemployment slashed.