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History and Government
History: An ancient, strategically important and much-contested territory, the historical region known as Macedonia was variously controlled by the Greeks, Romans, Bulgarians, Byzantines, Serbs and Ottoman Turks, who conquered the area in 1371, and kept it until the 19th century. Then, as Turkish power declined, Macedonia once again became a bone of contention between its various neighbours and their respective superpower allies. In 1893, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) was founded to promote independence. In 1912/13, the Balkan Wars drove the Turks out of the area, and it was carved up between Serbia and Greece, with Bulgaria retaining only a small part. Vardar Macedonia became part of the new 'Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes' in 1918 (‘Yugoslavia’ from 1929).
This caused much anti-Serbian resentment locally during the inter-war period, when the IMRO was also used as a terrorist organisation against Belgrade by Bulgaria, which again occupied the area under German direction during World War II. In 1945, the area became a constituent republic of the new communist Yugoslav federation, which the Serbs opposed. Thereafter a new ‘Macedonian’ nation was created, but this was never accepted as legitimate by any of the republic’s neighbours. In December 1990, following the collapse of communism in Yugoslavia, Macedonia held its first multi-party elections for the 120-seat national assembly, the Sobranje. The results, from a very low turn-out, were inconclusive. The electorate converged upon four main parties: a rejuvenated version of IMRO; the former communist Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDAM), which evolved from the former Communist Party; the Liberal Party of Macedonia (LPM) and the Democratic Prosperity Party (DPP), which drew support from the country’s sizeable Albanian minority. Throughout the 1990s, and two further elections, the country was governed by a series of coalition governments led by either IMRO or SDAM. The most recent Sobranje election in September 2002 returned another SDAM-led coalition under a new premier, Branko Crvenkovski. Other than the emergence of the Democratic Union for Integration, which supplanted the DPP as the main custodian of Albanian interests, the complexion of the new assembly is similar to previous ones.
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s quest for international recognition ran up against fierce objections from Greece, which felt that Skopje’s use of the title ‘Macedonia’ implies a territorial claim against Aegean Macedonia in Greece, given that it corresponds with the northern Greek province of the same name (the ancient name ‘Paeonia’ is preferred in Athens). During 1993, the Greek government took a more conciliatory line, and Macedonia was admitted to the UN on April 3 1993 under the temporary name ‘The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’. In October 1995, an accord was reached between the two countries – and accepted by the two parliaments – which resolved all outstanding disputes between them, including the flag, but not the name, which continues as the unprepossessing ‘FYROM’ for official purposes. The settlement of this dispute was vital to the Macedonians not only for their status as a sovereign state but also economically, since the Greeks had instituted a trade embargo to pressure Skopje into a settlement.
After the resolution of the dispute with Greece, Macedonia was consumed by inter-communal violence between the majority Slavic population and the country’s Albanian minority – this was closely related to the conflict across Macedonia’s northern border in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Much of this occurred during the latter part of 1997, just as confidence in the Government was being seriously undermined by a financial crisis caused by the collapse of ‘pyramid’ financial schemes similar (though on a much smaller scale) to those which caused the Albanian economy to collapse the same year. In October 1998, violence in neighbouring Kosovo drove many refugees into Macedonia until the Skopje government closed the border. The situation remained relatively quiet until the beginning of 2001 when a series of clashes took place between Macedonian security forces and resurgent Albanian guerrillas.
Over the next few months, it appeared at times that Macedonia would be the last of the former Yugoslav republics to be consumed by civil war. Urgent diplomacy managed to produce an agreement in August 2001 under which the guerrillas agreed to hand over their weapons in exchange for guaranteed political and cultural rights for the Albanian population. The same month, NATO – having perhaps learnt some of the lessons of Bosnia and Kosovo – despatched a 3,000-strong force to supervise the implementation of the accord. The NATO force, after extending its mandate, will remain in place until December 2002 when it is expected to be replaced by a wholly European peacekeeping force.
Government: Legislative power rests with the elected 120-seat national assembly, the Sobranje. Executive authority is wielded by the elected State President who appoints the Council of Ministers. In September 1996, new legislation was approved, dividing the FYROM into 123 municipalities. In July 1998, parliament adopted a new electoral system. Under the new legislation, parliamentarians are elected by a mixture of a majoritarian, constituency-based system and proportional representation: of 120 seats, 85 are elected by the former and 35 by the latter.
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