Voters in North Macedonia head to the polls on Wednesday for a double parliamentary and presidential election, following an election campaign in which the country's aspirations to join the European Union have played a central role.
Parliamentary elections are the more important of the two contests, as the real power rests with the Prime Minister's Office, and the appointment of the president is largely ceremonial. The centre-right opposition coalition, which is opposed to neighboring Bulgaria's terms of EU candidacy, is favored to win both elections.
While elections for the unicameral parliament are held in one round, the presidential election is a two-round run-off that began in April, with a centre-right candidate gaining a significant lead over the centre-left incumbent.
More than 1,700 candidates are vying for 120 seats in the unicameral parliament. Three seats are reserved for foreigners, but turnout was too low in the last election in 2020 to fill them.
What is at stake?
The month-long campaign has focused on fighting corruption, improving the struggling economy and alleviating poverty, but the main issue has been the fight over North Macedonia's membership in the European Union.
Neighboring Bulgaria's demand for North Macedonia's Bulgarian minority to be officially recognized in the constitution is supported by the ruling centre-left party, but the centre-right opposition party denounces it as a capitulation to Bulgaria.
In the last census in 2021, only a tiny fraction of the country's 1.84 million people, just over 3,500 people, identified themselves as Bulgarian.
North Macedonia has been a candidate to join the European Union since 2005, but this was long blocked due to conflict with neighboring Greece. Greece had opposed the name Macedonia, saying it would conflict with Greece's Macedonia region.
The conflict was resolved in 2018 in a country calling itself North Macedonia. But Bulgaria has since blocked North Macedonia's participation in the EU, insisting it would only lift its veto if it amended its constitution.
Formal EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia and fellow candidate Albania will begin in 2022, with the process expected to take several years.
VMRO-DPMNE, the center-right opposition party, at one point threatened to break an agreement with Greece over the use of Macedonia's name, but has since softened its rhetoric. Observers point to the party's membership in the European People's Party and its friendly relationship with the German Christian Democratic Party as evidence that it is not seeking to leave the agreement.
corruption
North Macedonia has been identified by both the European Commission and the US government as having a corruption problem, and opposition parties pursued this issue during the election.
VMRO-DPMNE leader and election favorite Hristijan Mikoski has accused the ruling centre-left coalition of leading a “pandemic” of corruption, but says his party's record is anything but clean. do not have. VMRO-DPMNE The last prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, is a fugitive from Hungarian justice.
Dimitar Kovacevski, leader of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), which heads the ruling coalition, said he was aware of the people's dissatisfaction and wondered if more could have been done to fight corruption. Admitted. He has supported measures to confiscate illegally obtained property from corrupt authorities.
A 2023 European Commission report said “corruption remains endemic in many regions” of North Macedonia. In December, the U.S. Ambassador to North Macedonia, Angela Aggeler, said, “Corruption is endemic in this country, affecting every sector and every organization, and only by exposing corrupt actors can this country be improved.'' We can begin to help address these issues.” ”
who is running
The two main blocs are multiparty coalitions: the center-left coalition “For the Future of Europe'' led by the SDSM, with 14 parties, and the center-right opposition party “Your Macedonia'', led by VMRO-DPMNE, with 22 parties. be done. .
In the presidential election, SDSM's incumbent Stevo Pendarovskiy is clearly losing ground to VMRO-DPMNE's Gordana Silzhanovska Davkova, with Pendarovskiy having a 20.5 lead in the first round of voting on April 24th. %, and received 41.2% of the votes.
The two faced off in the last presidential election in 2019, with Pendarovskiy winning 53.8% to 46.2% in the runoff.
Both large federations primarily represent ethnic Macedonians and other ethnic minorities. Two separate coalitions, the European Front and VLEN (Was), are vying for representation among Albanians, the country's largest ethnic minority, making up about a quarter of the country's 1.84 million people.
The European Front, a nine-party coalition, is dominated by the Democratic Union for Unity (DUI). DUI was founded by participants in the 2001 separatist uprising and has been a coalition partner of every government for the past two decades.
However, VMRO-DPMNE leader Miccosukee has declared that he hopes to form a government with VLEN, a four-party coalition on the right wing of the DUI.
Opinion polls consistently show Miccosukee's coalition leading the SDSM-led coalition by a double-digit margin.
The splintered social democratic party ZNAM (“For Our Macedonia”) could see its leader Maksim Dimitrilavskiy become the kingmaker after winning 9.5% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election.