Macedonia Opposition Against Snap Polls

“This would undoubtedly mean that Macedonia is willingly giving up its perhaps last chance that the EU is giving us in the foreseeable future,” Crvenkovski said in an interview for the Wednesday edition of the Utrinski Vesnik daily.

The country must instead use the next six months to intensely seek a solution to the burning name row with Greece, which has become the only obstacle for its admission to NATO and for the start of its accession talks with the European Union, he argued.

Speculations of early snap polls initiated by the ruling centre right VMRO DPMNE party appeared earlier this month, after Macedonia was left empty-handed at the last EU foreign minister meeting in Brussels.

The EU Council of Ministers postponed for six months the decision on extending a date for accession negotiations with the country due to Greece’s objection. Greece refuses to let Macedonia start the talks before it changes its constitutional name. Last year, Athens blocked Skopje from entering NATO for the same reason.

Athens argues that Skopje’s constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia implies territorial claims towards Greece’s own northern province, also called Macedonia. The UN mediated negotiations and the direct talks between the two countries have so far been in vain.

“Prime Minister Gruevski who has absolute power in the country carries the Macedonian part of the blame for the outcome in Brussels, and he has to face it,” Crvenkovski said, blaming him for a lack of willingness to compromise with Greece.

“He must present his red lines […] SDSM’s red line is the preservation of the Macedonian identity i.e. to be referred at as ‘Macedonian’,”  he said.

Various opinion polls show that Gruevski’s VMRO DMPNE has a firm lead over SDSM.

Last year, soon after the first Greek blockade at the  NATO Bucharest summit, Gruevski initiated snap polls and won decisively over SDSM. Observers pointed out that this was largely so due to his rhetoric that presented him as a firm defender of the country’s constitutional name.

SDSM then also complained that VMRO DPMNE wasted the chance for using the momentum after the NATO summit to strike a deal with Greece while the issue was still hot.

So far the ruling party has not confirmed speculations of early polls.