Skopje, 16 October 2025 (MIA) - Distribution of confidential voting materials from the Bitola’s Kiro Dandaro printing house to the municipal election commissions for Sunday’s 2025 local elections is expected to start Thursday morning. Afterward, the municipal elections commissions will distribute the confidential material, including ballots and voters’ list to the election boards. The Ministry of Interior will oversee the entire distribution under continuous security measures. The police will be responsible for protecting the confidential voting material until Election Day on Sunday, October 19.

Ballots have been printed in the same number as the registered voters in the voters’ list, 1,832,415 each for mayors and councilors, as well as additional ballots for the City of Skopje, where 474,304 voters have the right to vote for mayor and council members.

Mden 48 million are earmarked for printing ballot papers, but the exact expenditure will be known once it is clear, according to the results, where a runoff will be required and how many more ballots must be printed.

A total of 1,832,415 voters are registered for the 2025 local elections. Of those, 1,717,803 are registered in the regular voters’ lists, 112,000 are in special excerpts of the voters’ list (those temporarily living or working abroad), 2,162 are in prisons, and 450 are in non-family facilities.

In line with the Electoral Code, there will be no diaspora voting for the local elections, so citizens who wish to exercise their voting right must come home to vote.

The sick and infirm, prisoners and detainees will vote first on Saturday, October 18. Around 9,000 sick and infirm persons have registered to vote, more than in the 2021 local elections, along with 2,162 prisoners and 450 residents of retirement homes.

Voting will take place from 7 am until 7 pm at 3,473 polling stations across the country. Voting is held only once and in secret, and as in previous elections, biometric identification devices will be used to identify voters.

The October 19 local elections are an opportunity for voters to elect mayors and municipal council members in 80 municipalities and the City of Skopje.

Photo: MIA archive