Parliamentary elections in North Macedonia will be held on May 8, 2024, together with the second round of presidential elections. The first round for the election of the country’s president will take place on April 24.
This is what the political parties decided on Monday in a meeting that was called by the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovacevski, at the same time the chairman of the ruling Social Democratic League.
“I express my satisfaction that we will have the first parliamentary elections in a regular term after 17 years. The last ones were in 2006. This means that this government has created additional stability, predictability and certainty,” Social Democratic Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski said after the meeting.
He was referring to the practice established by former VMRO DPMNE PM Nikola Gruevski, whose party came to power in 2006 and was ousted in mid-2017 after a deep political crisis, of always calling snap general elections to catch his opponents off-guard.
During the Social Democratic tenure in office, the last general election was again held in an irregular term, in the middle of 2020, due to postponements caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
Hristijan Mickoski, leader of the right-wing opposition VMRO DPMNE party, confirmed the agreement. “We will certainly win, regardless of the date,” Mickoski said.
The deal comes after a prolonged disagreement between the two main political blocs over the exact election dates.
For nearly two years, the opposition has called for snap elections as soon as possible, claiming the government has been delegitimized by betraying national interests and by fostering widespread corruption.
The government has responded that it will grant the wish of the opposition on condition that they support a key constitutional change, currently in parliamentary procedure, that would see the country’s Bulgarian minority mentioned in the preamble in the list of state-founding peoples.
That needs to pass if the country’s EU bid is not again to be blocked by neighboring Bulgaria. But it needs a two-thirds majority in parliament, which can only be reached if the opposition comes on board. On this topic, there was no agreement on Monday.
Likely cabinet changes will not wait for the elections next year.
Kovacevski also said that, on January 28, the ruling partners will form a technical government with a PM elected from the ranks of the country’s ethnic Albanians, who are the second largest ethnic group in the country, after Macedonians.
This honors a 2020 agreement between the Social Democrats and the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, that 100 days ahead of the next general elections, the country will get its first-ever ethnic Albanian PM, albeit serving in a more symbolic capacity.
The name of the technical PM has not been revealed. Some speculate that the current Parliament Speaker, Talat Xhaferi, might assume the duty. Others mention lesser-known names as potential premiers.
