Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Dimitrov, who is also considered the front-runner to be the presidential candidate of the ruling coalition, gave an interview for Radio Free Europe in which he discussed the “potential” presidential nominee.

The main issue of the presidential elections should be the futuer, not the past. It will be a confrontation between hope and fear, Dimitrov told RFE.

If he is the nominee Dimitrov, who signed the Prespa treaty with Greece to rename Macedonia into North Macedonia, will face opposition candidate professor Gordana Siljanovska, who is an outspoken critic of the treaty. Dimitrov says that the country he renamed should now capitalize on the process and complete the NATO accession and open EU accession talks, and therefore the elections should favor the ruling coalition.

We had an excellent EU report last June and the EU told us that the road to accession talks is shaping up. Their decision is planned for June. If the success of “our country”, which cleared its own path which was blocked for years, is not rewarded, it will be an enormous problem for the credibility of the entire accession process and for the EU’s Balkan policy, Dimitrov adds in the interview.

The SDSM party, which nominated Dimitrov as Foreign Ministers, still hasn’t decided on its nominee and is in talks with several ethnic Albanian parties asking for their votes, given its drop in support among ethnic Macedonians.