Macedonia Elections Profile

Macedonian Government building | Photo by Balkan Insight

How many can vote?

More than 1.7 million people of a total population of about 2.2 million are eligible to vote on June 5.


What is at stake?

The elections will not bring radically new messages before the electorate. Voters will generally choose between the nationalistic policy of the centre-right VMRO DPMNE, now in power for six years, and the Social Democrats’ pledges of economic reform and ending the current impasse with Greece, which is blocking NATO and [the hope of] EU membership.

Since 2008, Macedonia has made no significant progress towards NATO and EU membership because Greece disputes the country’s name. Macedonia’s dilemma is either to reach an unpopular deal with Greece that would unlock the blockades, or risk a longer stalemate that will affect the country’s economic and political potential.

The Prime Minister:

The Prime Minister has the most powerful role in Macedonia’s political system. Unlike the President who wields considerable influence over foreign policy and the armed forces, all other fields are generally in the hands of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister is the head of government and is ultimately responsible for its policy and decisions. He or she oversees the operation of government agencies and proposes members of the cabinet.

Like all cabinet members, the Prime Minister is elected by parliament.

The Prime Minister thus has the key word on whether to seek an unpopular compromise on the name issue at the UN-sponsored talks, or defend the country’s right to continue calling itself “Macedonia”, even if this results in Greece blocking its hopes of joining the EU too.

The voting system:

In the general elections, the country is divided into six electoral units, each contributing 20 legislators to the 120-seat parliament. The diaspora, who have the right to vote for the first time this year, will have three seats. The parties propose lists of 20 candidates in each of the six electoral units. The more votes that a party wins in each of the six units, the more candidates from that lists enter parliament. The legislators’ term lasts for four years.

General elections:

These are the seventh general elections since Macedonia became independent in the 1990s. They follow six years in government of Nikola Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE party.

The tradition so far since the 1990s is that after a full mandate in power, voters tend to switch to the opposition. However, opinion polls give the ruling VMRO-DPMNE a firm lead over the main opposition Social Democrats.

Some political observers say a surprise result remains possible if the opposition can mobilize undecided voters, many of whom feel generally disappointed with all the existing political options.

The vote will also determine the winner in the ethnic Albanian bloc. Albanians make up about a quarter of the population. The winner in this bloc usually ends in a coalition government with the winning Macedonian party.
 
Polls show that the governing Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, has the biggest chance of winning among Albanian voters. But the Albanian camp has been enlivened by the appearance of two new players. Alongside the established opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, these elections see the debut of the National Democratic Rebirth party and another newcomer, the New Democracy Party.

This article was made possible through the support of the National Endowment for Democracy.