SKOPJE, North Macedonia –
North Macedonia elected its first female president on Wednesday as the ruling Social Democrats suffered historic losses in parallel presidential and parliamentary elections.
Conservative-backed Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, a 70-year-old law professor, was declared the winner after receiving nearly 65 percent support and more than two-thirds of the votes counted in a presidential runoff. “Is there a bigger change than electing a woman as president?” Siljanovska-Davkova told party supporters. “I will support women to take this big step forward, a step towards reform.”
Incumbent Stevo Pendarovski accepted after winning just over 29 percent of the vote. Siljanovska-Davkova was backed by the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, which made major inroads into popular discontent over the country’s slow path to European Union membership and its sluggish economy. A coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE was ahead with almost 43 percent in the parliamentary elections, while the coalition led by the Social Democrats, which has been in power for at least seven years, struggled to maintain second place with a 14.8 percent, just ahead. of a group of parties led by the minority ethnic Albanian party DUI.
Celebrations in the capital, Skopje, were interrupted by a storm that caused power outages. The Conservatives’ landslide victory is likely to be followed by complex power-sharing talks to control the 120-seat parliament. But Social Democratic leader Dimitar Kovachevski, who served as prime minister from 2022 until early this year, admitted his party’s defeat Wednesday night in the parliamentary election and announced he would resign after the party elects a new leader. Siljanovska-Davkova’s victory makes her the first woman to hold the largely ceremonial position of president since the country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The month-long campaign focused on North Macedonia’s slow progress towards membership in the 27-nation EU, the rule of law, corruption, the fight against poverty and the fight against the country’s stagnant economic growth. country.
VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski led a 22-party coalition called “Your Macedonia” that accused opponents of ineptitude and making humiliating concessions in trying to resolve disputes with North Macedonia’s neighbors.
NATO member North Macedonia has been a candidate to join the EU since 2005, but was blocked by successive disputes with neighbors Greece and Bulgaria, as well as slow progress on some reforms needed to advance membership.
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia are also seeking membership.
Skopje resident Gordana Gerasimovski said she was disappointed that the country had been waiting so long to join the EU, but hoped to make real progress now.
“We should have been part of the European Union a long time ago,” he said. “This is what we are missing, but we hope that over time we will get to where we have wanted to be for so long.”
More than 2,300 national and international observers were authorized to monitor the elections.