Constitutional court no relation Dimitar Kovačevski
Politics
North Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy with an executive government composed of a coalition of parties from the unicameral legislature (Собрание, Sobranie; Assembly in English) and an independent judicial branch with a constitutional court. The Assembly is made up of 120 seats and the members are elected every four years. The role of the president is mostly ceremonial, with the real power resting in the hands of the prime minister. The president is the commander-in-chief of the state armed forces and a president of the State Security Council. The president is elected every five years and he or she can be elected twice at most.
Since 2019, local government functions are divided between 80 municipalities (општини, opštini; singular: општина, opština). The capital, Skopje, is governed as a group of ten municipalities collectively referred to as the "City of Skopje". Municipalities in North Macedonia are units of local self-government. Neighbouring municipalities may establish co-operative arrangements.
The country's main political divergence is between the largely ethnically based political parties representing the country's ethnic Macedonian majority and Albanian minority. The issue of the power balance between the two communities led to a brief war in 2001, following which a power-sharing agreement was reached. In August 2004, parliament passed legislation redrawing local boundaries and giving greater local autonomy to ethnic Albanians in areas where they predominate.
After a troublesome pre-election campaign, North Macedonia saw a relatively calm and democratic change of government in the elections held on 5 July 2006. The elections were marked by a decisive victory of the centre-right party VMRO-DPMNE led by Nikola Gruevski. Gruevski's decision to include the Democratic Party of Albanians in the new government, instead of the Democratic Union for Integration–Party for Democratic Prosperity coalition which won the majority of the Albanian votes, triggered protests throughout the parts of the country with a respective number of Albanian population. A dialogue was later established between the Democratic Union for Integration and the ruling VMRO-DMPNE party as an effort to talk about the disputes between the two parties and to support European and NATO aspirations of the country.After the early parliamentary elections held in 2008, VMRO-DPMNE and Democratic Union for Integration formed a ruling coalition. In April 2009, presidential and local elections in the country were carried out peacefully, which was crucial for Macedonian aspirations to join the EU. The ruling conservative VMRO-DPMNE party won a victory in the local elections and the candidate supported by the party, Gjorgi Ivanov, was elected as the new president.
In June 2017, Zoran Zaev of the Social Democratic Party, became the new prime minister six months after early elections. The new center-left government ended 11 years of conservative VMRO-DPMNE rule led by former prime minister Nikola Gruevski.As of 4 January 2020, the acting prime minister of North Macedonia was Oliver Spasovski and the current president of the Parliament is Talat Xhaferi. The election of Xhaferi was immediately met with protests led by VMRO-DPMNE, which was quickly handled by the police.The early parliamentary elections took place on 15 July 2020. Zoran Zaev has served as the prime minister of the Republic of North Macedonia again since August 2020. Stevo Pendarovski was sworn in as North Macedonia's new president in May 2019. Prime minister Zoran Zaev announced his resignation after his party, the Social Democratic Union, suffered losses in local elections in October 2021. In January 2022, Dimitar Kovačevski was elected as prime minister. The new coalition cabinet composed of Kovačevski's Social Democrats and two ethnic Albanian parties.Parliament, or Assembly (Macedonian: Собрание, Sobranie), is the country's legislative body. It makes, proposes and adopts laws. The Constitution of North Macedonia has been in use since shortly after the independence of the republic in 1991. It limits the power of the governments, both local and national. The military is also limited by the constitution. The constitution states that North Macedonia is a social free state, and that Skopje is the capital. The 120 members are elected for a mandate of four years through a general election. Each citizen aged 18 years or older can vote for one of the political parties. The current president of Parliament is since 2017 an ethnic Albanian, Talat Xhaferi.Executive power in North Macedonia is exercised by the Government, whose prime minister is the most politically powerful person in the country. The members of the government are chosen by the prime minister and there are ministers for each branch of the society. There are ministers for economy, finance, information technology, society, internal affairs, foreign affairs and other areas. The members of the Government are elected for a mandate of four years. Judiciary power is exercised by courts, with the court system being headed by the Judicial Supreme court, Constitutional Court and the Republican Judicial Council. The assembly appoints the judges.
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