Macedonia Opposition Names Shekerinska PM Candidate

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By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

Macedonia’s main opposition Social Democrats have chosen Radmila Shekerinska as the party’s candidate for prime minister, as the country prepares for June 5 elections.

Party leader Branko Crvenkovski made the announcement late on Wednesday at a celebration of the party’s 20th anniversary.

“Shekerinska is a synonym for Macedonia’s EU integration, a person that enjoys the respect of both Brussels and Washington,” Crvenkovski said, reiterating that he would not be part of a government led by the Social Democrats, if the party wins the snap polls.

Shekerinska is a party veteran and during her term in office as deputy prime minister in charge of European affairs, Macedonia gained the status of EU candidate country in 2005.

Shekerinska said she would work to “turn Macedonia into a prosperous country” if her party wins the upcoming polls.

Macedonia
Macedonia

Shekerinska’s name had been floated around in recent weeks as one of two top opposition candidates after Crvenkovski indicated that he would not run for the prime minister’s seat. The other possible candidate was Zoran Zaev, a high-ranking Social Democrat who is currently the mayor of Strumica.

Crvenkovski, meanwhile, says he will remain at the helm of the opposition and will lead the party through the polls.

The Social Democrats hope to defeat the ruling VMRO DPMNE of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, which it accuses of curbing democratic freedom, ruining the economy and deliberately keeping the country at an arms length from NATO and the EU.

Macedonia’s ruling party has not yet chosen its candidate, but analysts expect current Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to stand again.

Shekerinska briefly led the Social Democrats during the 2008 early elections, when the party suffered a devastating loss to the VMRO DPMNE.

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The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.

One thought on “Macedonia Opposition Names Shekerinska PM Candidate

  • April 26, 2011 at 8:05 pm
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    Crvenkovski knows he will not be re-elected,chose to use Sekerinska as a pond.She will loose to Gruevski with a big margine.
    He did that just to keep a job for himself as the party chief,otherwise,he would end-up with no job.

    Reply

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