A poll prepared by the IPIS agency and published by Sitel TV today shows the SDSM – DUI candidate Stevo Pendarovski in a lead, but within the margin of error, ahead of the VMRO-DPMNE candidate Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova.

The poll was conducted in late March, among 1.110 likely voters.

Pendarovski has the support of 28.8 percent of the voters, while Siljanovska can count on the votes of 26.8 percent. The third candidate, Blerim Reka, who is mostly competing for the ethnic Albanian vote, is supported by 7.1 percent.

In other categories, a relatively large share of 16.2 likely voters said they won’t name their pick. In an environment of constant persecution of the opposition, with arrests and politically driven charges, this is seen as a reasonable move by opposition supporters who are afraid of engaging pollsters.

Siljanovska is the first choice for a majority of ethnic Macedonian voters. Some 35.8 percent of Macedonians support her, while 33.5 percent are in favor of Pendarovski (a mere 0.2 percent of Macedonians would vote for Reka). Pendarovski makes up the difference behind Siljanovska in Macedonian voters by drawing a greater share of the Albanian vote where he polls at 17.4 percent. No ethnic Albanians who were polled said they would support Siljanovska, and Reka gets 30.4 percent of their vote.

But Siljanovska enjoys solid support among the other, smaller ethnic minority groups, 17.9 percent of who would vote for her, and 14.3 percent would support Pendarovski. Reka will get no votes from the smaller ethnic groups in Macedonia.

By occupation, Pendarovski, as the candidate of the left and of the ruling coalition, enjoys the support of the public administration, which is often easily pressured or intimidated to vote for the ruling candidate. Some 39.1 percent of the public administration said they will support Pendarovski, and 32.2 percent will vote for Siljanovska.

Siljanovska, on the other hand, enjoys the support of the working people, the self-employed, the businessmen and the farmers. She easily beats Pendarovski in these categories, with double his votes in the case of the rural vote which breaks at 35.2 – 17.6 percent in favor of Siljanovska.

Among the self-employed and private sector workers, Siljanovska wins with 31.8 percent compared to Pendarovski’s 18.2 percent. The opposition candidate is in the lead among the retirees as well wth 29.2 percent as opposed to 26.3 percent for Pendarovski. The unemployed are also in favor of Siljanovska, with 19.6 percent as opposed to 15.1 percent for Pendarovski.