Hostile Takeover: How NATO Annexed Macedonia
Kit Klarenberg | The alliance welcomed its newest inductee on March 27th 2020. How extraordinary it would be, if the country was the last one in, and first one out. | In Macedonia - or North Macedonia, or FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) - a counter-revolution impends. On April 24th, citizens went to the polls to choose their next President. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova of Russophilic, pro-Serbian VMRO-DPMNE trounced Western-backed incumbent Stevo Pendarovski, albeit not by an absolute majority. The second round will be held May 8th, although opinion polls point to the challenger’s crushing victory. As we shall see, this development is a devastating blow to NATO, which could have far-reaching consequences regionally. ● Pendarovski is a darling of EU and US officials. His upset win in 2019 was widely hailed in the mainstream media as illustrative of Macedonians’ yearning to at last become fully-fledged members of the transatlantic community, and rejection of VMRO-DPMNE’s “anti-Western” politics, which prominently included resisting NATO membership. His success also removed the last remaining barrier to Skopje joining the military alliance - a bitter, fraught, and protracted process, opposed by a significant proportion of the local population.
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