North Macedonia's PM announces resignation

SKOPJE - Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev announced late Sunday that he resigned as both prime minister and and chairman of the ruling Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) party after the party's defeat in the second round of local elections.

Zaev told a press conference that he took responsibility for the "bad results" in the local elections held earlier in the day for 44 municipalities across the country.

The preliminary results of the second round of local elections showed that the candidates from the main opposition VMRO-DPMNE party were taking the lead.

According to the country's State Election Commission (SEC), the turnout in the second round was 48.61 percent or 640,076 voters out of over 1.33 million eligible voters.

The SEC is expected to announce the election results within 12 hours, according to the local media.