Macedonia had a turbulent 2016, but 2017 will not be any different. The December 11 elections have shown that whichever party forms the government will not be able to rule peacefully and the opposition will be onto it.

Veteran leader Nikola Gruevski's nationalist VMRO-DPMNE won 51 out of 120 seats in Macedonia's parliament in a snap poll on Sunday that is expected to end a two-year long crisis that brought his government down.

The nationalists are now in a good position to form a government with their old partner, the Albanian DUI despite their losses. Overall, Albanian ethnic minority parties lost out to the social democrats, suggesting an easing of ethnic strains.

Preliminary results issued by the State Election Commission showed opposition Social Democrats had won 49 seats in the election, brought about by Gruevski's resignation over a wiretapping scandal.

Albanians make up about a third of the 2.1 million population of the landlocked former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, and have traditionally voted for ethnic Albanian parties, one of whom then becomes the junior party in a coalition government.