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Macedonia elections: Albanians, police in shootout 1 June 2008 | 11:04 | Source: Beta SKOPJE -- Two men have been injured in incidents involving the use of firearms as polling stations opened this morning across Macedonia. A series of other incidents were also reported early in the day, scheduled for the snap parliamentary vote. The state electoral commission confirmed that one man was shot and wounded in Skopje, while the second incident happened in the village of Krusino, some 10 kilometers away from the capital. The police did not reveal the identity of either of the victims. But the Macedonian MUP did say that in Krusino, ethnic Albanians confronted a special police unit, after an Albanian attempted to vote on behalf of several other persons. When the officials organizing the ballot explained this was not possible, he produced a pistol, and was joined by several other armed persons. "When the police intervened, the group left the polling station, to start shooting at policemen, and this is when one person was injured, and taken to hospital," police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told Beta news agency. Voting was interrupted in several other places because armed men appeared there as well, breaking up ballot boxes and stealing the material necessary to organize elections. Some polls remains closed all morning, the agency says. Away from the voting booths, police found cars packed with weapons near Krusino itself, and near the village of Aracinovo. State election committee chief Zoran Tanevski confirmed that most of the incidents this morning happened in the Albanian-inhabited areas. In the village of Malino, near Kosovo, a ballot box was stolen, while in another one near Tetovo, an armed group entered the polling stations after which the voting was suspended. In the Gostivar area of Cifik, unknown perpetrators tried to fill the boxes with the ballot papers, Tanevski said. Meanwhile, two rival ethnic Albanian parties, the Democratic Union for Integration and the Democratic Party of Albanians are accusing each other for the attacks and incidents. It is in this atmosphere that 1,779,116 Macedonian voters can cast their ballots today, choosing between 18 parliamentary tickets competing for the nation's parliament, or Sobranie, and the 120 seats there. Polling stations close at 19:00 CET, with voting monitored by some 2,000 local and more than 460 foreign observers.
