There is great frustration over the stalling European integration in the southeastern European country. But more important for the election result was the poor administration of the Social Democratic government.
In recent years, no country in the Western Balkans has made such far-reaching compromises for the long-term goal of EU accession as North Macedonia. And probably nowhere is the frustration over the lack of progress as great as in the southernmost successor republic of the former Yugoslavia. Eventually they even changed their own name. You got little in return.
Landslide victory for the nationalists
In the future, Skopje is likely to show more teeth again. The national conservative VMRO-DPMNE won a landslide victory in Wednesday’s parliamentary elections. With 58 seats in the 120-member parliament, she fell just short of an absolute majority. The party leader Hristijan Mickoski has been appointed as the new head of government.
Dimitar Kovacevski’s Social Democrats, who have been in power so far, will now only have 18 seats and will therefore even fall behind the largest Albanian party, DUI. A good quarter of the country’s 2 million inhabitants are ethnic Albanians.
The VMRO also came out on top in the second round of presidential elections that took place at the same time. Their candidate, emeritus law professor Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, received 65 percent, more than twice as many votes as the incumbent Stevo Pendarovski.
Dispute with Bulgaria
Brussels has itself to blame for its frustration with the EU. In 2018, the Social Democratic government managed to resolve the decades-long name dispute with Greece. In the Prespa agreement, the then heads of government Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras agreed on a compromise. The former Yugoslav republic renamed itself North Macedonia. In return, Athens paved the way for the Euro-Atlantic integration of its northern neighbor.
Shortly afterwards, North Macedonia joined NATO. In the EU, France first vetoed the start of accession negotiations, then Bulgaria stood in the way. This is also about questions of identity. From the Bulgarian perspective, there is no Macedonian nation and no Macedonian language. The latter, according to popular opinion, is simply a dialect of Bulgarian.
In 2022, Skopje agreed to change the constitution again and recognize the existence of a Bulgarian minority in the country. Accession negotiations with Brussels were then opened. However, several clauses in this so-called “French proposal” grant Sofia the right to veto North Macedonia’s path towards the EU in the future.
Bad governance
The VMRO, which had already protested against the Prespa agreement, spoke out vehemently against the French proposal during the election campaign. The party thus met the mood of the population. Unlike the compromise with Greece, which was accepted as the price for moving towards Brussels, the vast majority rejects changing the constitution again without a guaranteed return from Sofia.
The experiences after the name change, but also the lack of transparency in the negotiations with Bulgaria, contribute to the distrust. Even decidedly pro-European voices such as former Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov expressed reservations about the French proposal.
International attention was on the European dimension of the election. But the decisive factor for the result was frustration with poor governance, says Zoran Nechev from the Institute for Democracy in Skopje. For example, many people cannot travel because five years after the name change, only passports with the inscription North Macedonia are still valid, but their issuance is significantly delayed.
Faded zeal for reform
Of course, the VMRO does not have a good track record in this regard. Under the party’s last head of government, Nikola Gruevski, the country was seen as a model of a hijacked state that was dominated and plundered by a corrupt elite. After the change of power, Gruevski fled to Hungary to avoid corruption proceedings.
The Social Democrats came to power in 2017 as a reform force that was trusted to achieve results not only in the dispute with Greece, but also in the rule of law. However, the enthusiasm for reform soon faded. EU representatives regularly criticize the lack of progress in the fight against corruption. It is also pointed out that the dispute with Bulgaria is not the only obstacle on the way to Europe.
The Albanian coalition partner of the Social Democrats, DUI, also played a part in this. The party has been involved in almost all governments since the ethnic conflict of 2001 and has long enjoyed a monopoly of power among the Albanian population.
The Albanian opposition ran united in Wednesday’s elections and won 13 seats. The election winner Mickoski is therefore not dependent on the DUI to integrate the Albanian minority.