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Voting at South Ossetia’s presidential elections over

The winning candidate is to score 50% plus one vote in the first round

TSKHINVAL, April 9. /TASS/. Voting at South Ossetia’s presidential elections and a referendum on changing the country’s name into the State of Alania is over as all the polling stations closed at 20:00 local time on Sunday.

Votes will be counted manually. The first results will be announced by mifnight.

Three candidates - incumbent President Leonid Tibiliov, parliament speaker and the leader of the United Ossetia party Anatoly Bibilov and State Security Committee officer Alan Gagloyev - are vying for the presidential office.

The winning candidate is to score 50% plus one vote in the first round.

People could cast their votes at 72 polling stations in South Ossetia, and five outside the republic: in Moscow, Sukhum, Abkhazia, Vladikavkaz (the capital city of Russia’s North Ossetia Republic) and in North Ossetia’s Prigorodny district.

Voting at the polling station in Abkhazia ended at about 15:00 local time as it ran out of ballot papers.

No serious violations were reported during the voting day.

According to chairperson of the South Ossetia Central Election Commission Bella Pliyeva, the voter turnout one hour before the end of the voting was 81.23%

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