SKOPJE, Nov 29 — Several thousand protesters from Macedonia’s right-wing opposition marched through the capital Skopje yesterday in a protest against Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who is pushing through a deal to change the country’s name.
The group, waving Macedonia’s red-and-yellow flags, was led by the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party that was ousted from power in 2017 and has seen its ranks weakened further in recent months.
The party has so far failed to thwart a deal that Zaev, a pro-EU Social Democrat, struck with Greece this year to rename the country “North Macedonia”.
If the change is finalised in parliament, Athens has promised to lift its veto on Skopje’s attempts to join NATO and the EU.
Greece has blocked the road for years because it insists the name Macedonia should apply solely to its own northern province.
Critics of the deal argue that Macedonia is being bullied by Greece.
“We’ll show you your place in history, the dark side of history, in the next early or regular elections,” VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski said of Zaev’s government in a speech to the crowd.
He added that he wants to fix this “situation of national humiliation” and called for weekly protests in the capital.
The mostly elderly protesters paraded from the party’s headquarters to parliament nearby.
“We should not allow the centuries-old name of our fatherland Macedonia to be changed,” Marlena Janeva, a 70-year-old, told AFP.
After a dramatic parliament vote that saw several VMRO-DPMNE MPs defect from their party to approve the name change, parliament is now drafting the precise constitutional amendments to enshrine the deal.
A final vote will need to pass with a two-thirds majority.
In another dose of drama to rock VMRO-DPMNE, the party’s former leader, ex-PM Nikola Gruevski, fled Macedonia this month to escape a two year prison sentence for abuse of power.
He was granted asylum in Hungary, which Skopje has strongly criticised, demanding his return. — AFP
