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2019 North Macedonian presidential election

← 2014 21 April 2019 (first round) 5 May 2019 (second round)

Nominee Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova Stevo Pendarovski Party VMRO-DPMNE SDSM

President before election Gjorge Ivanov VMRO-DPMNE Elected President TBD

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Presidential elections were held in North Macedonia on 21 April 2019. Three candidates were on the ballot in the first round; Stevo Pendarovski of the ruling Social Democratic Union, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova of the nationalist opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, and Blerim Reka, an independent representing the Albanian minority. Pendarovski and Siljanovska-Davkova finished in first and second place, qualifying for the second round on 5 May.

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 will be 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, but the voting process had violent past, when 8 members from VMRO-DPMNE (who later were excluded from VMRO-DPMNE) of whom 2 were participants in the Storming of the Macedonian Parliament. Greece ratified the agreement & the accession protocol for NATO.

Incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov has been 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.

The name change has the support of the government coalition formed by the Social Democrats (SDSM) and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration in April 2017. The nationalist VMRO-DPMNE coalition led by Hristijan Mickoski is 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.

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. In the second round, voter turnout must be at least 40% for the result to be deemed valid. 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%, 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%.

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

Since the nomination of the candidates, several opinion polls have been 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

Second round

Results

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

References

1. North Macedonia elects new president after name change deal Deutsche Welle, 21 April 2019
2. North Macedonia on knife-edge as indecisive election goes to runoff. The Guardian, 22 April 2019
3. North Macedonia presidential vote heads to runoff. France24, 22 April 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. Polls Open in Macedonia Presidential Elections Balkan Insight, 13 April 2014
7. ^ Amendment XXXI Constitution of North Macedonia
8. Anna Fruhstorfer & Michael Hein (2016) Constitutional Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: From Post-Socialist Transition to the Reform of Political Systems Springer, p235

v t e Elections and referendums in North Macedonia
Presidential elections	1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019 2024
Parliamentary elections	1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2008 2011 2014 2016 2020 2024
Local elections	1990 1996 [mk] 2000 [mk] 2005 [mk] 2009 [mk] 2013 2017 2021 [mk] 2025
Referendums	1991 2004 2018
See also: Elections in Yugoslavia

• 2019 elections in Europe
• 2019 in North Macedonia
• April 2019 events in Europe
• Presidential elections in North Macedonia