Presidential election
Election in North Macedonia: Opposition wins first round
Voting at a polling station in the capital Skopje. photo
© Boris Grdanoski/AP/dpa
The pro-European and pro-Western Social Democrats have ruled North Macedonia since 2017. There are now signs of a change in voter sentiment.
The candidate of the largest opposition party, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, has won the first round of the presidential election North Macedonia clearly won. The 70-year-old law professor, who is supported by the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE, received a vote share of 40.1 percent after counting almost all polling stations, as the State Election Commission announced on Thursday morning in Skopje.
According to this information, incumbent Stevo Pendarovski (61), who is supported by the ruling Social Democrats (SDMS), was well behind Siljanovska-Davkova with 19.9 percent of the vote. Similar to Germany, the president primarily has protocol-related powers; the office is representative in nature. The pro-European and pro-Western SDSM has ruled Macedonia since 2017, which renamed itself North Macedonia in 2019.
Runoff election on May 8th
Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani came in third with 13.4 percent of the vote. He belongs to the co-ruling Albanian party DUI. Since none of the candidates received at least 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election on May 8th will decide who will fill the highest state office. A parliamentary election is scheduled to take place on the same day, which is politically more serious. With the tailwind of the presidential election and against the background of the changed mood in the country, the VMRO-DPMNE, which had a partly authoritarian government from 2006 to 2016, could push the Social Democrats from government power with the election on May 8th.
The EU opened accession negotiations with North Macedonia in July 2022. Under pressure from EU member state Bulgaria, the small Balkan country must mention the Bulgarian minority in the preamble to its constitution so that substantive accession negotiations can begin. However, due to resistance from the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE, there has not yet been a two-thirds majority in parliament to amend the constitution accordingly.
The country joined NATO in 2020 after the government of Social Democrat Zoran Zaev settled the name dispute with Greece by renaming it. Athens had insisted on the name change because a region in northern Greece had the same name.