Skopje - The former communist party of Mr Tito Petkovski admitted defeat in the Macedonian presidential election last night, giving victory to Mr Boris Trajkovski, the candidate of the right-wing ruling party.
Mr Trajkovski, who is head of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, had a lead of 48,000 votes after the count in 81 of the 85 constituencies and could not be be beaten, a spokesman for Mr Petkovski's party, the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia, told a press conference. Mr Petkovski had hoped to succeed veteran President Kiro Gligorov, who comes from the same party but did not stand for re-election.