Presidential elections will be held on 13th and 27th April in Macedonia, where the favorite is again incumbent Gjorge Ivanov, supported by the ruling VMRO DPMNE, said in the text of the “To paron”.
As Netpress correspondent from Athens reports, Greek media this time openly writes about their desired political option in Macedonia to be their interlocutor in the name issue.
While “To paron” writes that Ivanov holds strong positions in the name issue, for SDSM candidate Stevo Pendarovski says:
“For his opponent, also a professor, Stevo Pendarovski from SDSM, a politician who recently has shown great flexibility on the name issue, it seems there is no much hope”, the text says.
The Greek press, and the Greek state officials continually express dissatisfaction with the position of Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and President Gjorge Ivanov aimed at protecting the constitutional name and Macedonia’s identity, describing them as unyielding and nationalistic.
On the other hand, the messages of the Macedonian opposition leader Zoran Zaev say that SDSM do not like to be patriots and that we need make compromise regarding the name issue.
While SDSM led by Zaev criticizes the Macedonian government policy regarding the name issue, there is a growing number of politicians and media experts is Greece who report that the southern neighbor is the one that has lost in the dispute and that the Greek, not Macedonian government, has the wrong strategy for this issue.
This is confirmed by the latest issue of the newspaper “Rizopoulos”, who writes that the Greek government failed to effectively deal with the name issue.
Greek political party “Potami” had almost identical criticism and they said that the issue with Skopje is an example of lack of strategy in Greek foreign policy.
“Many governments and organizations have recognized the country under its constitutional name. We stick our head in the sand and denying reality does not help”, recently said “Potami” urging the Greek government to seek a solution without maximalism, NetPress reports.