BERLIN – The first general election in northern Macedonia since the country changed its name and resolved a long-standing dispute with neighboring Greece has ended without a clear winner, leaving the country’s future diplomatic record in the balance.
The center-left Social Democrats emerged as the strongest party, garnering 36.3 percent of the vote with almost 90 percent of the ballots counted. That leaves the party several seats below the 61 it needs to form a 120-seat majority in Parliament, and faces several days of tense coalition talks with smaller parties.
The closest rival of the Social Democrats, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE, won around 34.9 percent, which means it could still gain power with the support of smaller parties representing the country’s Albanian ethnic minority.
“It is still on the precipice,” said Petar Arsovski, a political analyst and survey expert based in northern Macedonia.
The murky result reflects the ambivalence that many Macedonians feel towards Zoran Zaev, the leader of the Social Democrats.
As prime minister, he angered some voters by changing the name of the country and what they saw as an effort for a review of the judicial system. But Mr. Zaev raised wages, led North Macedonia to NATO and cleared the way for its application in the European Union by solving long-standing disputes with Greece and Bulgaria.
While Mr Zaev’s nationalist opponents support the country’s membership in NATO and its implementation in the EU, they also want to review aspects of the agreements with Greece and Bulgaria.
That is likely to spark a diplomatic dispute, increasing the risk that Greece and Bulgaria, both members of the EU, may hamper North Macedonia’s request. It could also distract international mediators from addressing other tensions in the Balkans, such as the still-unresolved dispute between Kosovo and Serbia.
While Mr. Zaev has been praised as a statesman outside the country, he divides opinion within North Macedonia, in part because of a step his government took to end its diplomatic isolation: adding the word “North” to the name of the country, a measure that reassured Greece that its neighbor no longer harbored any secret claims about the Greek region, also called Macedonia.
That decision left many in the small Balkan nation feeling that their identity had been erased. Many also resented the way Zaev promoted the amendment in Parliament, despite the majority of citizens boycotting a referendum on the issue.
Zaev took office in 2017 after a VMRO-DPMNE-led government collapsed amid a series of protests against corruption, judicial interference, and government surveillance. His predecessor Nikola Gruevski then fled the country to escape corruption charges.
Mr. Zaev resigned from the presidency in January to allow a provisional government to monitor the election campaign.
The quality of democracy in northern Macedonia improved slightly during Zaev’s term, according to annual ratings issued by Freedom House, a Washington-based rights watchdog, but critics believe it hasn’t done enough to strengthen the judiciary or fight corruption.
Just over half of voters attended, about 15 percentage points less than in 2016, in part due to fears about the spread of the coronavirus, analysts said.
The election was initially scheduled for April, but was postponed to avoid the peak of the pandemic. The electoral authority delayed the announcement of the initial results due to problems with its website, which the authority attributed to a possible hacking attack.
Alisa Dogramadzieva contributed reporting.
