Professor Siljanovska promises to be voice of reason and justice if elected President of the Republic of Macedonia

Law professor Gordana Siljanovska Davkova published her first video address after deciding to run for President and to seek the VMRO-DPMNE nomination. Siljanovska is an outspoken critic of the Prespa Agreement to rename Macedonia into North Macedonia, and the author of a book length analysis pointing out all the legal and political flaws of the agreement.

After a lengthy deliberation, I decided to accept the initiative from my distinguished colleagues, and to nominate myself as a presidential candidate who would transcend the political parties. I seek the support of all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, of the VMRO-DPMNE convention delegates and of other political parties. I’m guided in my decision by my awareness of the desperate need to have a voice of reason in the Republic of Macedonia, a voice of law, justice and morality, a voice of true European values, professor Siljanovska said.

Siljanovska served as minister in the first SDSM Government in the early 1990ies, and has taught constitutional law at the Skopje law faculty. She was a critic of the last VMRO-DPMNE Government and took part in organizing protests in 2015, at the start of the so-called Colored Revolution, but has since denounced the push to rename the country and alter its history and redefine its national identity, which is the main effect of the overthrow of the Nikola Gruevski Government.

She is one of the nine candidates who sought the VMRO-DPMNE nomination. The opposition party will make its decision at a convention in Struga on February 16th, when party delegates will choose one candidate to run in the election expected to be held in late April. SDSM has still not announced its presidential candidate, while a number of smaller, especially ethnic based parties, have put forward nominations. SDSM’s main coalition partner, the ethnic Albanian DUI party, initially announced a plan to field a joint, “consensual” candidate, but later pulled back and said it will run a candidate of its own, although leaving room to go back to the original plan.