No. 18 Macedonian Matters
Parliamentary election results and the inauguration of N. Macedonia's first female president
This is Macedonian Matters. I’m Aleksej Demjanski.
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The Matters
VMRO-DPMNE wins landslide victory in May 8 election
Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova inaugurated as N. Macedonia’s first female president
VMRO-DPMNE wins landslide victory in May 8 election
North Macedonia held parliamentary and run-off presidential elections on May 8th. According to the State Election Commission, turnout for the parliamentary vote was 55.44% and 47.47% for the presidential election. The center-right VMRO-DPMNE party got a landslide victory, while the ruling center-left SDSM had their worst result since Macedonia’s independence in 1991.
VMRO-DPMNE received 43.32% of the vote, SDSM 15.37%, the DUI 13.67%, VLEN 10.64%, Levica 6.82%, and the ZNAM movement 5.59%.
As such, VMRO-DPMNE will have 58 seats in North Macedonia’s 120-seat assembly, DUI 19, SDSM 18, VLEN 13, Levica 6, and ZNAM 6.
Aside from VMRO-DPMNE’s better than expected result and SDSM’s worst performance yet, the race between the DUI and VLEN was tight but still resulted in DUI have more votes and seats. The leftist Levica saw their strongest performance yet receiving almost 70,000 votes, far more than they received in the last parliamentary, local, and presidential elections. Levica has tripled their number of MPs from 2 to 6 in the assembly. Maksim Dimitrievski’s new ZNAM movement didn’t get as many votes as he did for president, but still received nearly 60,000 votes and 6 seats.
The result gives VMRO-DPMNE a strong position to form government. They are nearing a coalition agreement with the Albanian VLEN having agreed on “European integration, economic development, the rule of law and the fight against crime and corruption [as] the main pillars of the work of the new government”, according to Euronews Albania. It remains to be seen whether the ZNAM movement will also be invited to join the coalition.
Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova inaugurated as N. Macedonia’s first female president
VMRO-DPMNE backed Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova beat SDSM backed incumbent president Stevo Pendarovski in the presidential run off vote. She received over 560,000 votes or 65.14% of the vote compared to Pendarovski’s 29.25%.
She is the first female president of North Macedonia and received the third most votes of any presidential candidate in history,. Only the first president of the republic Kiro Gligorov and statesman president Boris Trajkovski received more votes.
Siljanovska-Davkova was formally inaugurated on Sunday May 12 in North Macedonia’s parliament. In her inauguration speech, she stated:
“I will respect this Parliament, I will forget the bad moments, I will remember only the good ones. I will be the president of both the left and the right, of all citizens, I will not discriminate between them, neither on ethnic, religious, gender, nor on any other basis. I will try to justify these thousands of votes… I promise you that I will do that and that all of you will be proud of Macedonia as I am of my people...”
She also caused a stir of reactions after referring to the country as “Macedonia” rather than North Macedonia during her swearing in ceremony. The Greek ambassdor, at the directive of the Greek foreign ministry, exited the assembly. According to AP, “the Greek Foreign Ministry later issued a statement, saying that the new president’s actions violated an agreement between the two nations and put in danger both bilateral relations and North Macedonia’s prospects of joining the European Union.”
This also prompted a reaction from Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the EU Commission, reiterating the importance of the Prespa Agreement.
The European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm, also issued a statement about the new President’s use of “Macedonia.”
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