North Macedonia’s rightwing party sweeps to power in setback for EU talks

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North Macedonia’s rightwing opposition has won parliamentary elections and a presidential run-off on Wednesday, a victory that threatens to complicate membership talks with the EU.

With nearly all votes counted, the VMRO is set to control 58 of the 120 seats in parliament, according to the state election commission. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, a 70-year-old law professor backed by the VMRO, will be the country’s first female president after she won the largely ceremonial post in a run-off against incumbent leftist Stevo Pendarovski.

The Balkan nation, a Nato member, is seeking to join the EU, but its entry to the bloc has been blocked for years by Greece and more recently by Bulgaria.

The VMRO and Siljanovska-Davkova have said they would resist changing the constitution to include a reference to the country’s ethnic Bulgarian minority, a condition for Bulgaria to lift its veto on EU accession talks.

The party was last in power in 2017. In the year prior, Nikola Gruevski’s premiership ended amid a corruption scandal that forced him into exile in Hungary and landed him a seven-year jail sentence in absentia.

On Wednesday night, incoming premier Hristijan Mickovski accused the outgoing leftist government of graft and nepotism.

“The crime, the corruption, the incompetence, the false values ​​they advocated, the confiscated state . . . made the state suffer and the people disappointed,” Mickovski told supporters. “Tonight they are finally defeated.”

The VMRO, together with other minor parties, should have enough seats to create a coalition.

“There is a Gruevski scenario,” said Dimitar Bechev, an analyst at Carnegie Europe, alluding to a return to nationalism and authoritarianism. “There were promises during the campaign to reverse things to get a better deal from the EU.”

If Mickovski does agree to a constitutional change to include a reference to the Bulgarian minority, he will need to “find a fig leaf” to blame to avoid the appearance of bending to Bulgaria, he said.

In his concession speech, the leftist former prime minister Dimitar Kovačevski warned of the stakes.

“Next year is an opportunity for Macedonia to continue its European integration,” he said. “If we miss that chance, we could lose another decade, maybe even another generation.”