Over the last few weeks, the voting for the 2009 esctoday.com national final awards took place. Thousands of votes were cast and now it is time to reveal the winners. Today, the recipents of the awards for Best male performance and Best up tempo song will be revealed.

The 2009 esctoday.com National Final Award for BEST MALE PERFORMANCE goes to…

• …Aleksandar Belov for his performance of the song Zastani solzi izbrisi in the FYR Macedonian national final

Alesandar Belov became famous during his participation in thetalent search Operacija trijumf, where he finished third. During the shows, he performed with many former Eurovision Song Contest entrants: Karolina (FYR Macedonia 2002 & 2007), Boris Novkovic (Croatia 2005), Dado Topic (Croatia 2007), Goran Karan (Croatia 2000) and Sakis Rouvas (Greece 2004 & 2009). With his song Zastani solzi izbrisi, he finished third in the second semi final and equal seventh in the final of the 2009 FYR Macedonian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Live performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdsIf3h5EXk

This is the first national final award for FYR Macedonia. Previously, this award went to Adreas Johnson (Sweden) in 2006, Måns Zelmerlöw (Sweden) in 2007 and Kostas Martakis (Greece) in 2008. The complete results this year were as follows:

1. FYR Macedonia – 43.2%
2. Måns Zelmerlöw (Sweden) – 28.2%
3. Alexander Stenerud (Norway) – 11.1%
4. Omar Naber (Slovenia) – 10.1%
5. Mark Evans (United Kingdom) – 7.2%

The 2009 esctoday.com National Final Award for BEST UP TEMPO SONG goes to…

• …Stay the night from the Swedish national final written by Andreas Lundstedt, Therese Merkel, Lina Hedlund, Anders Hansson & Mårten Sandén

Stay the night was co-written by Alcazar's current members along with Anders Hansson & Mårten Sandén. The song finished fifth in the Swedish national final; Alcazar had previously finished third both in 2003 and 2005. The song peaked at number two in the Swedish single charts, which marks the band's highest position since Alcastar in 2005.

The song (studio version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezce9RW1Mno

This award was given out for the first time. The complete results were as follows:

1. Sweden – 48.4%
2. Stop (Romania) – 15.0%
3. Destiny (Estonia) – 13.7%
4. Det' det (Denmark) – 11.8%
5. Tricky (Norway) – 11.0%