14 minutes agoNorthern Macedonia on eve of presidential campaign
Periskopi(2 years ago)
(2 years ago)Candidates for president of Northern Macedonia are collecting the signatures needed to enter the race. It takes 10,000 signatures or the support of thirty deputies in parliament. There are 13 candidates in the race so far, including individuals unknown to the public. Albanian parties, although competing for the April 24th elections, [...]
Candidates for president of Northern Macedonia are collecting the signatures needed to enter the race. It takes 10,000 signatures or the support of thirty deputies in parliament. There are 13 candidates in the race so far, including individuals unknown to the public. Albanian parties, while competing for the April 24th elections, are focusing their demand on electing consensus president in parliament.
Players of main Macedonian parties, V MRO-DPMNE and the Social Democrat League are expected to be confirmed by the party's central assembly. Stevo Pendarovski of the Social Democratic League will compete for a second term, as Gordana Siljanovska Davkova and VMRO- The DPMNE competes again in five years. In 2019 she lost to Mr. Pendarovski.
Albanians represented by Bujar Osman of the Democratic Union for Integration and Arben Taravari of the opposition now known by motto VLEN.
The latter are expected to get tens of thousands of votes in the first round, but few believe one of them can pass into the second round, because so far an Albanian has not happened to face a run-off with a Macedonian contender for president. But it is the Albanian electorate that helps elect the president to this country.
To win elections that in the first round, more than 50 per cent of the electorate vote is needed. Northern Macedonia has little more than 1 million and 800 thousand voters, while a trend is marked to reduce interest in voting.
Analyst Xhelal Neziri estimates that presidential elections will be tense because they are held just two weeks before the parliamentary elections.
The first round of presidential elections will be a kind of survey, or weight measurement for political parties, and a kind of moment later can be used and materialised for the parliamentary elections. If a candidate wins in the presidential elections then even the political party will then try to build a winning narrative, promote a euphoria even for parliamentary elections. For this reason, I think it will be these tense elections, but given the profile of the competing candidates themselves, I think it will be interesting and container”, says Mr. Neziri.
The DUI is embarking on a campaign with a rhetoric for the impending danger of the country's malicious and hybrid influences, while the Albanian opposition is aiming to win the DUI, which has been in power for 20 years.
Northern Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy, although the president is elected at direct voting, his competencies are limited.
Albanian parties for now insist that the president be elected to parliament with two-thirds of the vote, but that perhaps the next mandate should be expected.
Mr. Neziri says this demand is past the Albanian parties to increase the likelihood that an Albanian Albanian will sit down in the post of president, while not looking very much at the contestants and Albanian parties in the expected race. Analyst has dilemmas on the efficiency of their bid to vote on the idea rather than on the candidate:
It's some kind of paradox because the DUI and the V LEN have come out with their candidates, while seeking change of the electoral system for electing the president. In some form, they have started the race with a pessimism, with a result since now predicting that they will not achieve their goal. But they are promoting that through these votes that are about to burp, they will try to articulate their demand for change of the electoral code -- namely, changing the way of electing President” -- says in a conversation with the Voice of America, analyst Jelal Neziri. / VOA
