First woman President in landslide win
North Macedonia elected its first woman President yesterday as the governing Social Democrats suffered historic losses in twin presidential and parliamentary elections.
Conservative-backed Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, a 70-year-old law professor, was declared the winner after receiving nearly 65 per cent support with more than two-thirds of the vote counted in a presidential runoff. “Is there a bigger change than electing a woman as President?” Siljanovska-Davkova told party supporters. “I will stand with women in taking this great step forward, a step towards reform.”
Incumbent Stevo Pendarovski conceded after garnering just over 29 per cent of the vote. SiljanovskaDavkova was backed by the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, which made sweeping gains on popular discontent over the country’s slow path towards European Union membership and its sluggish economy. A coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE was ahead with nearly 43 per cent in the parliamentary election, while the Social Democrat-led coalition that has held power for the last seven years struggled to hold on to second place with 14.8. per cent – just ahead of a group of parties led by the ethnic Albanian minority party DUI.
Celebrations in the capital Skopje were muted by a thunderstorm that caused power outages. The conservative landslide win will be followed by power sharing talks for the control of the 120-seat parliament. But Social Democrat leader Dimitar Kovachevski, who served as Prime Minister from 2022 until early this year, conceded his party’s defeat late yesterday in the parliamentary election and announced he would stand down after a new leader is selected by the party. Victory for SiljanovskaDavkova makes her the first woman to hold the largely ceremonial post of President since the country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The month-long campaign focused on North Macedonia’s slow progress toward joining the 27-nation EU, the rule of law, corruption, fighting poverty and tackling the country’s flat economic growth.
VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski headed a 22-party coalition called “Your Macedonia” that accused opponents of ineptitude and making humiliating compromises in trying to settle disputes with North Macedonia’s neighbours.