2019 North Macedonian presidential election

Last updated

2019 North Macedonian presidential election
Flag of North Macedonia.svg
  2014 21 April 2019 (first round)
5 May 2019 (second round)
2024  
Turnout41.67% (first round)
46.65% (second round)
  Stevo Pendarovskii (16-10-2018) (cropped).jpg Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova (2012-11-13).jpg
Nominee Stevo Pendarovski Gordana Siljanovska
Party SDSM VMRO-DPMNE
Popular vote435,656377,446
Percentage53.58%46.42%

2019mk.png
Second round results by municipality

President before election

Gjorge Ivanov
VMRO-DPMNE

Elected President

Stevo Pendarovski
SDSM

Presidential elections were held in North Macedonia in 2019. Three candidates were on the ballot in the first round, held on 21 April: Stevo Pendarovski, supported by the ruling coalition led by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, including the Democratic Union for Integration; [1] Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova of the leading opposition party VMRO-DPMNE, and Blerim Reka, an independent supported by Albanian opposition parties Alliance for Albanians and Besa Movement. [2] The first round did not result in an absolute majority for any candidate, with Pendarovski receiving the most votes. In the second round held on 5 May, Pendarovski defeated Siljanovska-Davkova with 54% of the vote. [3]

Contents

Incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office, having previously been elected in 2009 and 2014.

Background

The elections were the first in North Macedonia after the Prespa agreement on the naming dispute, signed on 17 June 2018. A referendum was held on 30 September, in which a majority of voters approved the agreement, although turnout was far below the quorum required to validate the result, mainly because of an organized boycott of the Anti-Prespa agreement bloc. The Assembly subsequently approved the change of the country's name to "North Macedonia" on 11 January 2019, and Greece subsequently ratified the agreement and the accession protocol for NATO.

Incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov was a vocal opponent of the name change and refused to sign the laws and amendments on the matter. However, Assembly Speaker Talat Xhaferi claimed that his signature was enough to enforce the change. [4]

The name change had the support of the government coalition formed by the Social Democrats (SDSM) and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration. The nationalist VMRO-DPMNE coalition led by Hristijan Mickoski was in favor of NATO integration but against the name change, although the change was approved in the Assembly with at least four VMRO-DPMNE MPs voting in favour. [5]

After her nomination, VMRO-DPMNE candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova had promised to initiate a second referendum and restore the old name to the country if she won. [6]

Electoral system

The President of North Macedonia is elected using a modified two-round system; a candidate can only be elected in the first round of voting if they receive the equivalent of over 50% of the vote from all registered voters. [7] In the second round, voter turnout must be at least 40% for the result to be deemed valid. [8] Before 2009, the constitution required turnout in the second round to be 50% to validate the result. However, the XXXI amendment approved on 9 January 2009 lowered the threshold to 40%, [8] as the then-government feared the trend of reducing turnouts would lead to presidential elections being frequently invalidated. In the 2009 presidential elections, second round turnout was just 42.6%. [9]

The constitution mandates that the President must be over 40 years of age and have lived in the country for ten of the last fifteen years.

Opinion polls

Before and between the voting rounds, several opinion polls were conducted. The percentages of the polls below are related to only those voters who declared that they would vote for a certain candidate.

First round

Date(s) conductedPolling firm/ClientSample size/Type Pendarovski/SDSM Siljanovska/VMRO-DPMNE Reka/AA, Besa Lead
8-14 Apr 2019 Rating Agency 1,112/Face-to-face45.539.515.06.0
7-11 Apr 2019 IDSCS/Telma&MCMS 967/Telephone44.138.117.86.0
4-10 Apr 2019 M-Prospect/MRT 1,197/Telephone43.238.818.04.4
10 Mar-10 Apr 2019 Samerimpex Impulses/MCMS 1,147/Online50.441.48.29.0
23-27 Mar 2019 IPIS/Sitel 1,110/Telephone45.942.711.33.2
13-19 Mar 2019 M-Prospect/Telma&MCMS 1,001/Telephone42.938.418.74.5

Second round

Date(s) conductedPolling firm/ClientSample size/Type Pendarovski/SDSM Siljanovska/VMRO-DPMNE Lead
13-19 Mar 2019 M-Prospect/Telma&MCMS 1,001/Telephone55.344.710.6

Results

To win in the first round, a candidate would have had to receive at least 904,066 votes, equivalent to 50% of the number of registered voters.

CandidatePartyFirst roundSecond round
Votes%Votes%
Stevo Pendarovski Social Democratic Union of Macedonia 322,58144.75435,65653.58
Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova VMRO-DPMNE 318,34144.16377,44646.42
Blerim Reka Independent79,88811.08
Total720,810100.00813,102100.00
Valid votes720,81095.66813,10296.40
Invalid/blank votes32,6974.3430,4063.60
Total votes753,507100.00843,508100.00
Registered voters/turnout1,808,13141.671,808,13146.65
Source: OCSE

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Politics of North Macedonia</span> Political system of North Macedonia

Politics in North Macedonia occur within the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated North Macedonia a "flawed democracy" in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VMRO-DPMNE</span> Macedonian political party

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, often simplified as VMRO-DPMNE, is a political party in North Macedonia and one of the two major parties in the country, the other being the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">President of North Macedonia</span> Head of state of North Macedonia

The President of the Republic of North Macedonia is the head of state of North Macedonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elections in North Macedonia</span>

North Macedonia elects on the national level a head of state—the president—and a legislature. The president is elected for a five-year term by the people. The Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia (Sobranie) has 120-123 members, elected for a four-year term, by proportional representation. North Macedonia has a multi-party system, with numerous parties in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2004 Macedonian autonomy referendum</span>

An autonomy referendum was held in Macedonia on 7 November 2004. Voters were asked whether they approved of overturning the municipal redistricting plans that gave greater autonomy to ethnic Albanians following the Ohrid Agreement that ended the 2001 conflict between ethnic Albanian militants and the predominantly ethnic Macedonian government forces. These had been changed to give ethnic Albanians greater control in districts where they had significant presence and gives local authorities greater control over education, health and development. It also reduced the number of municipalities from 123 to 84.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 Macedonian presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in Macedonia in 2009. The first round was held on 22 March, alongside local elections. As no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a run-off round was held on 5 April 2009, which was won by Gjorge Ivanov of the center-right VMRO-DPMNE party. Incumbent President Branko Crvenkovski did not stand for re-election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gjorge Ivanov</span> Macedonian politician

Gjorge Ivanov is a Macedonian politician, who served as the 4th President of North Macedonia from 2009 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Todor Petrov</span>

Todor Petrov is the president of the Macedonian diaspora organisation World Macedonian Congress (WMC). Petrov is a councillor in the electorate of Gazi Baba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Macedonian parliamentary election</span>

Early parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of Macedonia on 5 June 2011, a year earlier than necessary. All 123 parliamentary seats of the Sobranie were due for election, including the 3 seats provided for the first time for representatives of the Macedonian citizens living abroad: 1 from Europe, 1 from North America, and 1 from Asia and Australia. The decision of the ruling parties, the Christian Democratic VMRO-DPMNE and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), to dissolve the Parliament and call for an early election was preceded by protests of the Social Democratic Union (SDSM), the major opposition party, and subsequent boycott of the Parliament by them, and by other smaller opposition parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoran Zaev</span> Former prime minister of North Macedonia

Zoran Zaev is a Macedonian economist and politician who served as prime minister of North Macedonia from May 2017 to January 2020, and again from August 2020 to January 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Macedonian general election</span>

General elections were held in the Republic of Macedonia in April 2014 to elect the President and members of parliament. The first round of the presidential elections were held on 13 April, with incumbent president Gjorge Ivanov finishing first with 53% of the vote. However, as he did not receive the support of 50% of all registered voters, a second round was held on 27 April, alongside parliamentary elections, with Ivanov and the ruling coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE claiming victory as Ivanov was elected president and the VMRO-DPMNE won 61 of the 123 seats in the Assembly.

The following lists events that happened during 2014 in the Republic of Macedonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 Macedonian parliamentary election</span>

Early parliamentary elections were held in Macedonia on 11 December 2016, having originally been planned for 24 April and later 5 June.

Storming of the Macedonian Parliament, also known as Bloody Thursday occurred on 27 April 2017, when about 200 Macedonian nationalists stormed the Macedonian Parliament in reaction to the election of Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian, as Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. It was the biggest attack in history on a Macedonian institution.

The Alliance for the Albanians is a centre-right political party founded in 2015 in North Macedonia by Ziadin Sela.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prespa Agreement</span> 2018 settlement of the Macedonia naming dispute

The Prespa Agreement, also known as the Treaty of Prespa, the Prespes deal or the Prespa accord, is an agreement reached in 2018 between Greece and the then-Republic of Macedonia, under the auspices of the United Nations, resolving a long-standing dispute between the two countries. Apart from resolving the terminological differences, the agreement also covers areas of cooperation between the two countries in order to establish a strategic partnership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Macedonian referendum</span>

A referendum was held in the Republic of Macedonia on 30 September 2018, with voters asked whether they supported EU and NATO membership by accepting the Prespa Agreement between Macedonia and Greece, signed in June 2018, which aimed to settle the 27-year naming dispute, which had prevented Macedonia from joining both the European Union and NATO. Despite 94% of voters voting in favour, voter turnout was around 37%, less than the 50% threshold required to validate the results.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova</span> Macedonian lawyer and professor

Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova is a Macedonian university professor and lawyer. She was a candidate for the 2019 presidential elections of North Macedonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 North Macedonian parliamentary election</span>

Early parliamentary elections were held in North Macedonia on 15 July 2020. It was originally scheduled for November 2020, but Prime Minister Zoran Zaev called early elections after the European Council failed to come to an agreement on starting talks with North Macedonia on joining the European Union in October 2019. The election date was set for 12 April, but was postponed until July due to the COVID-19 pandemic in North Macedonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2024 North Macedonian presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in North Macedonia on 24 April 2024. No candidate received a majority of votes in the first round, so a second round will be held on 8 May 2024, alongside parliamentary elections. Incumbent Stevo Pendarovski is eligible for re-election.

References

  1. "Втор обид на Пендаровски, овојпат како консензуален кандидат". Deutsche Welle (in Macedonian). 2 March 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  2. "Професорот Блерим Река независен претседателски кандидат, ќе го поддржат Алијанса за Албанците и Беса". Сакам Да Кажам (in Macedonian). 28 February 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  3. Supporter of North Macedonia Name Change Wins Presidency. New York Times, 6 May 2019.
  4. "Ivanov: Amnesty is a blackmail for votes for the Prespes Agreement". Independent Balkan News Agency. 28 December 2018.
  5. "Deputies agree historic name change for Macedonia". France 24. 11 January 2019.
  6. Силјановска ќе игра „втор референдум“ за Договорот од Преспа! 18.02.2019; Deutsche Welle.
  7. Polls Open in Macedonia Presidential Elections Balkan Insight, 13 April 2014
  8. 1 2 Amendment XXXI Constitution of North Macedonia
  9. Anna Fruhstorfer & Michael Hein (2016) Constitutional Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: From Post-Socialist Transition to the Reform of Political Systems Springer, p235