European Future In Focus As North Macedonia Set To Elect Next President

North Macedonia will hold a presidential election on Wednesday, the seventh since the small landlocked Balkan nation gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

The post of president is largely ceremonial in the country, and the winner will get a five-year term.

More than 1.8 million registered voters will cast their ballots from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (0600 – 1800 GMT).

For a first-round win, a candidate needs to secure more than 50% of the vote. If no one crosses the mark, a runoff will be held on May 8, alongside parliamentary elections.

In the second round, voter turnout must be at least 40% for the result to be valid.

There are seven candidates in the running this time, with opinion polls showing incumbent President Stevo Pendarovski and main opposition candidate Gordana Siljanovska Davkova as the frontrunners.

In 2019, Pendarovski defeated Siljanovska Davkova with 51.66% of the vote against her 44.73%.

Pendarovski is backed by the ruling left-wing Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM), while Siljanovska Davkova is the candidate nominated by the opposition conservative VMRO-DPMNE coalition.

The other candidates are Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani from the Albanian Democratic Union of Integration (DUI); Biljana Vankovska from the left-wing Levica party; Arben Taravari from the opposition Alliance for the Albanians; Maksim Dimitrievski from For Our Macedonia party; and Stevce Jakimovski from the GROM party.

European future in focus

The hot-button issue in the lead-up to the election has been North Macedonia's EU membership, pending since 2005.

A major hurdle was a dispute with Greece over its name, which led to the country officially changing its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia in 2018.

That, however, has only allowed North Macedonia to complete its membership to NATO.

The holdup to its EU membership now is from neighboring Bulgaria, which has blocked its accession process for two years, pressing Skopje to give constitutional recognition to its Bulgarian minority.

That has been a key issue in the campaigns of both current presidential frontrunners.

Pendarovski, 61, has vowed to see through the EU accession, citing his success in getting North Macedonia into NATO.

"In my next term, we will succeed in completing all requirements for EU accession," Pendarovski recently said at a campaign rally.

Siljanovska Davkova, however, has opted for a different approach, stressing that any constitutional change to recognize the Bulgarian minority should only happen once the EU officially takes in North Macedonia.

The 70-year-old has promised supporters at several rallies that she will "not forget national interests."

While the president does not have any power over executive decisions in North Macedonia, he or she is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, while also nominating the prime minister and suggesting appointments to the constitutional and supreme court. -