The coalition led by North Macedonia’s Social Democrat party SDSM and its leader and former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev won the majority of the vote in the country’s parliamentary election, and is on track to have 46 MPs in the country's 120-seat parliament, according to the final - but still unofficial - results released by the election commission and reported by the Serbia news agency Beta.

A close runner-up was the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, with 44 seats. Political parties of ethnic Albanians won a total of 28 seats in parliament, and for the first time, the Leftists secured 2 MPs.

The results prompted speculations that the country might get an ethnic Albanian prime minister for the first time in its history, since Albanian parties are likely to form a coalition with Zaev’s centre-left alliance to form a government.

The results, released by the country’s election commission, are pending appeal – according to Macedonian law, appeals can be filed over the next 48 hours, and the commission has another 72 hours to make a ruling.

Earlier this month, North Macedonia held an early elections which stretched over three days due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The vote was called after Zaev, who ran on a pro-European platform, handed in his resignation earlier this year in protest of the European Union postponing the start of membership talks with North Macedonia.