According to the first unofficial results of yesterday’s vote in the local elections in Albania, Macedonians in the Municipality of Pustec won the mayoralty and eight out of 15 councilors, thus continuing to control local government in the region of Mala Prespa, inhabited only by ethnic Macedonians.
The candidate of the Macedonian Alliance for European Integration Edmond Temelko won 80 percent, i.e. a total of 2.076 votes, unlike the candidate of the Democratic Party Mihalik Apostoloski, who won 488 votes.
Temelko, who led the municipality two terms before, expressed public gratitude to everyone who voted for him and MAEI.
General Secretary of the party Vasil Sterjovski said:
– Macedonian Alliance for European Integration has again won Municipality of Pustec. Edmond Temelko was re-elected mayor of Pustec. Macedonian Alliance also won the majority in the Municipal Council of Pustec. We expect the success of the party in other municipalities where we have councilor’ lists.
Albania yesterday held local elections, organized under a new administrative-territorial division for the first time, which, instead of the former 363 municipalities, now compose of only 61. Besides 61 mayors, more than 3.3 million voters are also to elect 1,595 members of municipal councils.
The only Macedonian party, Macedonian Alliance for European Integration (MAEI), went out as part of a broad leftist coalition of Prime Minister Edi Rama, but only with the candidate for mayor of Pustec, while it went independently for all 16 candidate lists for councilors (out of 61 municipalities).
The candidate lists in the race for council seat include a total of 200 Macedonians, the largest number ever.
