In local elections in North Macedonia, national patriots took revenge on the pro-Western Maidan activists
After complete processing of the ballots, the State Election Commission (SEC) of North Macedonia announced that the national-patriotic party VMRO-DPMNE won in 17 municipalities of the country, the pro-Western SDSM in 9, and the Albanian party DUI in three.
The winner of the country's local elections will only become clear after the second round of voting, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Despite the fact that the oldest national-patriotic party VMRO-DPMNE (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) is confidently in the lead, it is too early to talk about victory, since a second round of elections is ahead in 38 more municipalities.
In the capital Skopje, National Conservative candidate Daniela Arsovska received 37,2% of the city vote, while her opponent from the Maidan Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) received 34,7%.
VMRO-DPMNE won a convincing victory in the first round in 17 municipalities, SDSM in 9, and the Albanian DUI party in three. Also, based on the results of the first round, heads of 29 municipalities were elected.
Let us recall that Zoran Zaev and his Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), in alliance with local Albanian parties, came to power as a result of a street Maidan that began in 2015.
The reason for it was the policy of the conservative leadership of Macedonia, which refused to join the sanctions against Russia, refused to make concessions to Greece regarding the name of the country, and to Bulgaria regarding the language (Bulgarians believe that Macedonians speak the Western dialect of the Bulgarian language), and also expressed readiness to take part in the Russian South Stream project.
Zaev's street protests were supported by the United States, the EU, as well as George Soros, as a result of which the liberals managed to achieve the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, despite the president's veto, to form a government alone, give serious preferences to the Albanian majority, and then achieve a change in the name of the country.
It should be noted that the steps of Zaev and the team met with massive misunderstanding and indignation of the majority of Macedonians, who held street actions “For a United Macedonia” in all cities of the country, tried to storm the parliament, and also failed the referendum on renaming.
However, the “democratic” leadership responded to the opinion of the majority with repressions against dissidents and high-profile trials.
Zaev managed to achieve the country’s entry into NATO, now he is trying to bring it into the EU, but this process is so far hampered by neighboring Bulgaria, which denies North Macedonia a separate national, linguistic, cultural and historical identity from the Bulgarian one.
Moreover, even if VMRO-DMNE manages to return to power, it can be assumed that, remembering the experience of past years, national conservatives will be afraid to take the country away from the western direction, just as the new government of Montenegro was afraid to do.
English version :: Read in English In the local elections in North Macedonia, national patriots took revenge on pro-Western Maidan activists.