Macedonia's Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski became the front-runner over his conservative rival on Wednesday in the first round of the elections to succeed President Boris Trajkovski, who was killed in a plane crash two months ago.

Crvenkovski's ruling Social Democratic party said its candidateoutpolled Sasko Kedev of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE by 212,000 votes to 172,000, with half of the votes already counted.

Unofficial polls showed that Crvenkovski was clearly favored tobecome Macedonia's third president since independence in 1991. Both leading candidates failed to obtain half of the votes required to win outright in the first round. They'll have to enterthe second round on April 28.

Two candidates representing the one-in-four Albanian minority were well behind and will now drop out of the race.

Wednesday's voting process proceeded in a peaceful and democratic atmosphere with small incidents that do not spoil the general image on the first round of elections, said Stevo Pendarovski, president of the State Election Commission of Macedonia (SEC).

In Macedonia, the role of the president is largely ceremonial, but Trajkovski showed that the president could use the endowed power to successfully avoid a national crisis.

Enlisting strong European Union and NATO aid, Trajkovski pulledthe country back from the brink of a civil war between hardline nationalists and Albanian rebels in 2001.

Ethnic stability is vital to the republic of 2 million people, which borders the volatile UN protectorate of Kosovo, dominated byAlbanians seeking their independence from Serbia.

Source: Xinhua