Stevo Pendarovski is being inaugurated today as the fifth President of Macedonia since its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

The inauguration ceremony takes place in the Parliament, where Pendarovski will give his oath of office, before he moves to the villa Vodno residence where he will take over the office from outgoing President Gjorge Ivanov. Pendarovski is scheduled to have a brief meeting with Ivanov and the current staff in the office of the President.

The presidents of Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia will attend the inauguration, as will the foreign ministers from Greece and Montenegro. EU, NATO, Slovenia, Turkey and Poland are also sending mid level officials to represent them.

Pendarovski won the elections as the joint SDSM – DUI candidate, beating VMRO-DPMNE candidate Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova. Pendarovski lost the competitive, majorityu ethnic Macedonian parts of the country, but the near-unanimous turnout of ethnic Albanians, including supporters of Albanian opposition parties, in his favor, helped Pendarovski overturn Siljanovska’s lead and win by about 60.000 votes. With his win, the Zoran Zaev regime consolidates power and takes over the last vestige of the executive power from VMRO-DPMNE.