Parliamentary and Presidential Elections, 24 April and 8 May 2024

North Macedonia held the first round of its presidential elections on 24 April 2024. The second round was held on the same day as the parliamentary elections, 8 May 2024. Scheduling both elections in this way is widely considered a strategy to obtain the 40 per cent voter turnout required for the results to be valid, as fewer citizens vote in presidential than parliamentary elections (IFES 2024). The president is elected through a direct election with a two-round process in case a runoff is required (International IDEA n.d.). Parliament’s 120 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system (IFES 2024). The State Election Commission is the primary election management body with seven members, three of whom (including the president) are nominated by the opposition; the remaining four are nominated by the majority party (IFES 2024).  

Tensions regarding accession to the EU formed the backdrop to these elections (European Forum 2024). Concerns in the populace about corruption were also high. Online hate speech was prevalent in the preceding months, including personal attacks and disrespectful portrayals of candidates from all parties (Kolovska 2024). Nationalistic rhetoric was common in  campaigning (International IDEA 2024). 

There was high turnover among polling staff officials, and replacements were not always trained in time for election day (OSCE 2024). Voter and civic information was provided in various formats, including a helpline for voters with hearing difficulties and assistive tools at polling stations. However, key information was not always accessible, and staff training gaps meant polling staff rarely knew how to use tools like tactile ballot papers. Observers reported that over 50% of polling stations visited were not fully accessible for those with mobility issues (OSCE 2024). 

Voter turnout was 55.4 per cent for parliamentary elections and 47.4 per cent for the presidential runoff (International IDEA 2024). The right-wing coalition VMRO-DPMNE emerged as the largest party with 43.3 per cent of the vote. 

43 percent of the parliamentary candidates were women. Meanwhile, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova (backed by VMRO-DPMNE) won the presidential runoff with 65 per cent of the vote, becoming North Macedonia's first female president (International IDEA 2024). While all parties complied with the gender quota requirement of 40 per cent, the women were often placed in the lowest positions permitted by law. OSCE-ODIHR election observers pointed out that the campaigns featured a low number of women speakers, and little effort to engage female voters. Campaign discussions rarely included gender equality issues (IEOM 2024) while several women politicians reported to the ODIHR election observation mission that they had experienced gender based online harassment at some point in their political careers (OSCE 2024).

Joined by Council of Europe and European Parliament observers to form an International Election Observation Mission, the OSCE-ODIHR noted that the elections were competitive, calm and peaceful with fundamental freedoms respected, although the process remains ‘insufficiently regulated’ (IEOM 2024). 

OSCE-ODIHR observers stated that the election management body and other governmental agencies did not always fulfill their obligations for a transparent electoral process. Campaigning in the media was competitive but was greatly influenced by negative campaigning. Candidates were thus the targets of disinformation—rather than election processes themselves—but an organized effort on the part of state authorities to tackle disinformation online was lacking (OSCE 2024).