North Macedonia: Conservatives Win Presidential, Legislative Elections
The result calls into question the continuation of the EU accession process
The parliamentary and presidential elections in Northern Macedonia were won by center-right opposition forces. The small country of 2 million people on Greece’s northern border will be led for the first time by a woman, Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, backed by the VMRO-DPMNE party, which largely defeated outgoing Social Democrats (SDSM) leader Stevo Pendarovski.
With the counting of ballots almost complete, Siljanovska Davkova received 64.7% of the vote against Pendarovski’s 29.2%, who conceded defeat. Even in the legislative elections, the VMRO-DPMNE won with 42.5% against 14.5% for the SDSM, which was also surpassed by the Albanian formations (an ethnic group, to which 25% of Macedonians belong) united in the DUI-European Front, which gained 14.6%. They supported the outgoing government, while the other Albanian party, Vlen, has 11.6%. Turnout was 53% in the legislative elections and 46% in the presidential runoff.
The declared victory of the conservatives opens a wide-ranging debate on North Macedonia’s path to EU membership, negotiations for which began two years ago.
For the conservatives, the concessions made to Skopje as part of the agreements with Greece and Bulgaria to start the accession process were humiliating, and they dispute the very name “North Macedonia” (a figment of the 2018 agreements with Greece), which in the new President’s intentions will be the subject of a referendum.
