# Stojan Andov

# Stojan Andov

**Stojan Andov** (Macedonian: Стојан Андов; 30 November 1935 – 18 June 2024) was a Macedonian economist, diplomat, and politician who three times presided over the Assembly of North Macedonia, beginning as the first speaker of its pluralist parliament. Born in Kavadarci, he finished school there, graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Skopje, and in 1972 received a master’s degree from the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade.

In the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia he was vice-president of the Macedonian republican executive council, sat in the republic’s delegation to the Chamber of Republics and Provinces, and served three terms in the federal government, where he negotiated with experts of the European Economic Community between 1971 and 1987. The Assembly’s account of his career describes him as a specialist in economic questions and a politician oriented toward a market economy. From 1987 to 1991 he was Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Iraq.

He entered the first multiparty Assembly after the 1990 elections and on 8 January 1991 became its president. In November 1991 he chaired the sitting that adopted the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, now North Macedonia. Re-elected speaker after the 1994 elections, he remained in the chair until March 1996. After a car bomb in central Skopje on 3 October 1995 badly wounded President [Kiro Gligorov](/people/kiro-gligorov), Andov exercised the powers of head of state from October 1995 until January 1996, while Gligorov recovered.

Andov was the founder in Macedonia of the Alliance of Reform Forces associated with the last federal prime minister, [Ante Marković](/people/ante-markovic), a grouping that became the [Liberal Party](/organizations/liberal-party) of Macedonia, which he led as president from 1990 until a merger in 1997. He was also elected a vice-president of [Liberal International](/organizations/liberal-international). In 1999 he stood in the presidential election won by [Boris Trajkovski](/people/boris-trajkovski), and on 30 November 2000 the Assembly returned him to the speakership, which he held until 2002. He wrote books on the economy and the political system, and novels. On 8 September 2021, the thirtieth anniversary of independence, President Stevo Pendarovski conferred on him the Order of 8 September for his work as speaker of the first multiparty Assembly. He died on 18 June 2024.

## Early life and education

### Childhood and schooling in Kavadarci

Stojan Andov was born on 30 November 1935 in Kavadarci, now in southern North Macedonia. The town was still small during his childhood: a compilation of census results gives it 6,228 inhabitants on 15 March 1948, 7,550 on 31 March 1953, and 11,409 on 31 March 1961. He completed both primary school and gymnasium in Kavadarci. The town gymnasium, at first named Josip Broz after Josip Broz Tito and renamed Dobri Daskalov only in 1994, began teaching in Macedonian on 5 February 1945, five months after the town’s wartime liberation. Published biographies do not name Andov’s parents or give the year he finished school.

### University studies

Andov graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Skopje; neither the Assembly biography nor later obituaries give the year of the diploma. The faculty itself dates from a decree of the government of the People’s Republic of Macedonia of 14 November 1950, which created it as the fifth faculty of the University of Skopje. On 3 November 1951 it was joined with law as a legal-economic faculty, with separate law and economics sections, and on 1 July 1956 the economics section was again made an independent faculty. The University of Skopje had been constituted by a 1949 law that united faculties already teaching in the city. Its council gave it the name Cyril and Methodius in April 1969, and a further decision in November 1992 fixed the present name, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje.

In 1972 he received a master’s degree from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade. That faculty, in Belgrade, was founded in 1968 and was the first teaching and research institution of its kind in Yugoslavia. The Belgrade degree therefore belongs to a later stage of his career than the Skopje economics diploma, which preceded his appointment as a teacher in 1959.

### Early employment

Before republican and federal office, Andov worked in schooling, the official youth organization, and agriculture, almost entirely in Kavadarci. He was secretary of the secondary-school committee and of the municipal committee of the People’s Youth (Narodna mladina); the published chronologies do not date those posts. From 1959 to 1963 he taught at the town gymnasium with economics classes, then named “J. B. Tito,” and at Kavadarci’s Workers’ University “Moša Pijade,” named for the Yugoslav communist Moša Pijade. Macedonian biographical notices call him a professor in both of those posts.

In 1963–1964 he was employed at the Tikveš agricultural combine in Kavadarci, as secretary of the combine’s basic organization of the League of Communists of Macedonia and as director of its analytical-planning sector. The following year he left the town for Skopje, where from 1964 to 1965 he taught at the Political School of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Macedonia. That school post is the last employment these chronologies place before his 1965 appointment as an adviser in the republic’s Executive Council.

## Career in socialist Yugoslavia

### Local and republican offices

Andov’s first offices were in Kavadarci and in the apparatus of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The Macedonian Encyclopedia lists him as secretary of the secondary-school and municipal committees of the People’s Youth, a teacher in the economics classes of the “J. B. Tito” gymnasium (1959–63), and a lecturer at Kavadarci’s Moša Pijade workers’ university. In 1963–64, at the Tikveš agricultural combine, he was secretary of the basic organization of the Macedonian League of Communists, the republican body of the [League of Communists of Yugoslavia](/organizations/league-of-communists-of-yugoslavia), and director of its analytical and planning sector. He taught at the party’s political school in Skopje in 1964–65 and was an adviser in the Executive Council of the republican assembly in 1965–67.

From 1967 to 1970 he presided over the municipal assembly of Kavadarci. In 1970–71 he chaired the republican centre for ideological and political education and studies and sat on the Central Committee secretariat. The Fifth Congress of the Macedonian party put him on the standing section of its conference and in the chair of the Central Committee commission on socio-economic relations and economic policy.

After the Belgrade years he was vice-president of the republican Executive Council from 1982 to 1986, the office later treated as the republic’s de facto government. In 1986–87 he was a deputy in the Socio-Political Chamber, chaired the Executive Council board for the socio-economic order, economic policy, defence, security and foreign relations, chaired the board for the social plan and development, and sat on Macedonia’s delegation to the Chamber of Republics and Provinces in the assembly of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Assembly biography and a Balkan Insight obituary describe him as an economic specialist oriented toward a market economy. The book listed for these years, *Raspolaganje i upravljanje društvenim kapitalom* (Belgrade, 1985; second edition 1987), examines social capital under socialist self-management, not private ownership.

### Federal Executive Council and European negotiations

Andov wrote that he joined the federal government on 1 August 1971, that the mandate ended with the 1974 constitution, and that he was re-elected in May 1974 until May 1978, responsible for economic cooperation with developing countries. The encyclopedia gives him three terms on the Federal Executive Council in Belgrade, 1971–82: president of the federal commission for economic cooperation with developing countries, president of the inter-republican committee for the foreign-exchange and foreign-trade system, and president of part of the joint committees with Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Turkey and France. From 1978 to 1982 he chaired the commission coordinating cooperation with the European Economic Community and the [European Free Trade Association](/organizations/european-free-trade-association). Assembly, agency and press biographies extend the negotiating role across 1971–87, up to the Baghdad posting.

He wrote that in mid-February 1978, after Janko Smole resigned, Veselin Đuranović, president of the Federal Executive Council, asked him to take the EEC file and a third term so the talks would not stop. On that account the leadership was split over a separate agreement, partly for fear of the Soviet Union and Comecon, and foreign minister Josip Vrhovec called the Community’s platform unacceptable until other federal officials let the talks continue. *NRC Handelsblad* records the public course: talks since February 1978, resistance to a Mediterranean-style preferential accord, and a chill with West Germany after Belgrade released West German suspects.

The text was initialled in Brussels on 25 February 1980. *NRC* reported television pictures of Andov—styled minister of foreign trade, and in the caption minister for EC affairs—with Wilhelm Haferkamp, Commission vice-president for external relations. The Commission’s February 1980 newsletter, which also calls Andov a federal minister, said both men linked the accord to the Helsinki Accords and the Belgrade declaration of December 1976, and that Andov presented it as compatible with [non-alignment](/organizations/non-aligned-movement) and with ties that included Comecon. It put the Community’s trade surplus with Yugoslavia at about $880 million in 1973 and $3 billion in 1979, with duty-free entry for 70 percent of Yugoslav industrial goods, larger farm quotas and [European Investment Bank](/organizations/european-investment-bank) loans of about $286 million over five years. Andov called the result “of a special kind,” matching Yugoslavia’s place as a European, Mediterranean, non-aligned developing country rather than a political turn west.

The United Kingdom Treaty Series records the Co-operation Agreement, and a parallel accord of the European Coal and Steel Community’s member states, as signed in Belgrade on 2 April 1980 and in force on 1 April 1983. The preamble calls Yugoslavia a non-aligned European Mediterranean state and a member of the [Group of 77](/organizations/group-of-77). Andov later wrote that trade rules applied from 1 July 1980 and that a German demand over West Berlin nearly delayed signature while Josip Broz Tito was dying. The April signature and the 1983 entry into force are in the treaty text.

### Ambassador to Iraq

In 1987 he became ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Iraq, resident in Baghdad. The Assembly biography and the Media Information Agency date the mission 1987–1991; the encyclopedia ends it in January 1991. Balkan Insight’s obituary stops at 1990. Either dating covers the close of the Iran–[Iraq War](/facts/iraq-war) of 1980–88; an end in 1990 or 1991 also covers Iraq’s turn against Kuwait and the 1991 [Gulf War](/facts/gulf-war). The biographies give the rank and the years, not particular talks or contracts in Baghdad.

## Liberal Party and multiparty politics

### Founding and leadership, 1990–1997

The first competitive parliamentary elections in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then a constituent republic of Yugoslavia and the predecessor of today's North Macedonia, were held on 11 and 25 November 1990. Voters filled all 120 seats in the Assembly under a two-round majority system. The Macedonian organization of the Alliance of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia—the liberal, pro-federation party launched that summer by federal prime minister Ante Marković—was built through initiative committees in August and September. Stojan Andov, then Yugoslavia's ambassador to Iraq, became its principal figure. It argued for a market transition without violence and for keeping a Yugoslav state, drew cadres from reform-minded communists and enterprise directors, and allied with smaller groups, including the Young [Democratic Progressive Party](/organizations/democratic-progressive-party). [VMRO-DPMNE](/organizations/vmro-dpmne) attacked it as a Belgrade project. A pact with the reformed communists of Petar Gošev did not form, partly from rivalry between Gošev and Andov. A 2021 study credits the Alliance and its partners with 18 seats, 11 of them the reformists' own, while VMRO-DPMNE took a relative plurality; Andov was elected in Kavadarci in the first round. Balkan Insight's later summary likewise gives Andov's Alliance of Reformists 11 seats, behind VMRO-DPMNE (37), Gošev's League of Communists–Party for Democratic Transformation (30) and the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity (17). No list had a majority. Deputies backed an expert cabinet under [Nikola Kljusev](/people/nikola-kljusev); when it fell in 1992, [Branko Crvenkovski](/people/branko-crvenkovski)'s [Social Democrats](/organizations/social-democrats)—the renamed communist successor, which became the [Social Democratic Union of Macedonia](/organizations/social-democratic-union-of-macedonia)—formed a government that included the largest Albanian party, a practice that became routine in coalition-making.

The reformist organization was established as the Liberal Party of Macedonia, which Andov led as president. At the elections of 16 and 30 October 1994, the first after independence, it stood in the three-party Alliance of Macedonia with the Social Democrats and the Socialist Party. The [Inter-Parliamentary Union](/organizations/inter-parliamentary-union) recorded 95 seats for that alliance: 58 Social Democrat, 29 Liberal and 8 Socialist. VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Party of Macedonia boycotted the second round and contested the result; foreign observers called the election generally free and fair, with reservations about the electoral registers. Crvenkovski formed a new government that included [the Liberals](/organizations/the-liberals). On 10 February 1996 he dismissed the party's ministers after disputes with Andov over privatization of industrial firms; Kiro Gligorov had wanted them kept.

### Merger, revival, and later role

Andov remained Liberal president until 1997, when the party merged with Gošev's Democratic Party. Liberal International dates the launch of the resulting [Liberal Democratic Party](/organizations/liberal-democratic-party) to April 1997. Andov became president of the new party's council. In the October–November 1998 elections the Liberal Democratic Party, under Gošev, won four seats, against 62 for the coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Alternative led by [Ljubčo Georgievski](/people/ljubco-georgievski) and Vasil Tupurkovski, and 27 for the Social Democrats. The Inter-Parliamentary Union still entered those four seats, and 7.0 percent of the vote, under the name Liberal Party. Andov was the Liberal Democratic Party's candidate in the presidential election of 31 October and 14 November 1999, one of six candidates; Boris Trajkovski was elected. The Liberal Democratic Party states that at the beginning of 2000 former Liberals led by Andov, including deputies Latif Pajkovski and Slobodan Danevski, left and re-formed the Liberal Party. The Assembly records that after this revival Andov was elected to the Liberal Party's executive committee. The two organizations then allied in opposite directions. In 2002 the revived Liberal Party stood with VMRO-DPMNE in a coalition Balkan Insight lists, under Georgievski and Andov, at 33 seats, while the Liberal Democratic Party states that it ran with the Social Democrats in "Together for Macedonia," which won 60. On the Assembly's page for the 2008–2011 term, Andov is again identified as president of the Liberal Party.

### Liberal International

The Liberal Party joined Liberal International, the world federation of liberal parties, at its 1994 congress in Reykjavík. After the 1997 merger, membership passed to the Liberal Democratic Party, which Liberal International continues to list as a full member for North Macedonia. The Assembly and the state news agency MIA record that Andov himself was elected a vice-president of Liberal International; neither gives the congress or the years of the mandate.

## First speakership of the Assembly

### Election in 1991

The first multi-party Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, in what is now North Macedonia, was chosen in the autumn of 1990 under a majority system, with turnout above 84 percent in the first round and no majority in the 120 seats. A later official recount gave VMRO-DPMNE 38 deputies and the League of Communists of Macedonia–Party for Democratic Transformation — from 1991 the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) — 31. The Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP) had 17, plus five with the People's Democratic Party; the Union of Reform Forces had 11, plus five with the Young Democratic-Progressive Party, and Socialists, smaller lists and three independents held the rest.

Stojan Andov entered as leader of the Union of Reform Forces and as founder and president of the Liberal Party, which he led from 1990. The constitutive sitting opened on 8 January 1991 under the oldest deputy, Nikola Stojanovski. A proposal for a secret ballot on the presidency of the Assembly failed, 55 to 58, so the vote was public. Andov received 81 votes, none against and none abstaining, and took the oath. The Assembly dates that term from 8 January 1991 to 19 November 1994.

The October 1994 elections returned him as deputy and speaker. The Inter-Parliamentary Union recorded 95 seats for the Alliance for Macedonia — SDSM 58, the Liberal Party 29 and the Socialist Party 8 — against 10 for the PDP, four for the [National Democratic Party](/organizations/national-democratic-party) and a scattering of others. VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Party boycotted the second round and sought annulment; observers called the poll generally free and fair, with reservations about the registers. The Assembly, convening on 19 November 1994, again elected Andov, and dates that term to 6 March 1996.

### Constitution and state-founding legislation

On 25 January 1991, with Andov in the chair, the Assembly adopted by acclamation a Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, without article-by-article debate. Deputies quoting it noted that republican law was to prevail over conflicting federal Yugoslav acts. Two days later, Andov still presiding, the Assembly elected Kiro Gligorov president by secret ballot, 114 of the 119 deputies who voted, with five invalid ballots, meeting the required two-thirds of the full house.

On 8 September 1991 a referendum asked, in the State Archives' wording, whether voters favoured an independent Macedonia with the right to join a future union of sovereign Yugoslav states. The Archives state that 95 percent of those who voted answered yes. That evening in Skopje, Andov spoke with Gligorov and Prime Minister Nikola Kljusev. A sitting Andov opened at 22:05 on 17 September, and closed at 04:00, adopted a declaration recording that result; the final text passed with four votes against and one abstention.

On the night of 17 November 1991 the Constitution passed with 92 votes, above the two-thirds of all deputies the draft required. The decision to promulgate it, which Andov signed the same day, received 96 votes, as did the constitutional law for its implementation. The preamble, citing the referendum, calls the republic the national state of the Macedonian people, with equality as citizens for Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Roma and other nationalities, and a sovereign, independent, civic and democratic state. Macedonian, in Cyrillic, is the official language, with other languages in official local use as provided by law. The text was published in the Official Gazette, No. 52, of 22 November 1991.

On 19 December 1991 Andov convened the Assembly on the declarations the European Community's foreign ministers had adopted in Brussels three days earlier. It passed a Declaration on the International Recognition of the Republic of Macedonia as a sovereign and independent state by 104 votes, none against and none abstaining. On 6 January 1992 Amendments I and II were adopted by 110 votes, with one abstention, and promulgated by 112, again with one abstention. They limit border changes to the Constitution, voluntary agreement and international norms, and bar interference in other states' sovereign rights or internal affairs. Andov said they confirmed the absence of territorial claims and were meant to meet the Community's recognition criteria. The State Archives record a positive Badinter commission assessment, Community recognition in January 1992 of Slovenia and Croatia but not Macedonia, and recognition by Bulgaria and Turkey on 15 January 1992.

### A divided chamber

VMRO-DPMNE, led by Ljubčo Georgievski, the reformed communists under Petar Goshev, the Reform Forces and the Albanian parties were each large enough to block the others. The opening sitting divided over whether to play only the Macedonian anthem or the Yugoslav anthem as well. On the speakership, Faik Abdi of the Socialist Party said VMRO-DPMNE, the Reform Forces and the reformed communists had negotiated without the PDP, and backed Andov, from a much smaller bloc, rather than risk a crisis or fresh elections.

Lacking a partisan majority, the Assembly elected an expert government under Kljusev rather than a cabinet of the largest party. In 1992 a mandate offered to VMRO-DPMNE was returned for want of a majority, after which Branko Crvenkovski's Social Democrats formed a government that included the PDP.

In the constitutional debate a PDP–People's Democratic Party amendment on the official language received 22 votes and fell; Andov then recorded 75 votes for the article making Macedonian official. The promulgated preamble described a national state of the Macedonian people, with other groups named as nationalities. VMRO-DPMNE deputies said the decision to call the referendum had itself been taken by acclamation.

Balkan Insight later wrote that he was praised for managing an inexperienced Assembly whose groups were often sharply divided on the country's future. The 1994 majority did not settle the coalition. On 6 March 1996 the agenda opened with Andov's resignation. The Liberal group said election of a new government had unilaterally broken the Alliance for Macedonia, and abstained. Tito Petkovski of SDSM, nominated by 67 deputies from SDSM, the Socialists, the PDP and smaller partners, was elected with 79 votes in favour, five against and 29 abstentions, the size of the Liberal contingent.

## Acting president of the republic

### The attack on Kiro Gligorov

On the morning of 3 October 1995 a car bomb exploded in central Skopje as the limousine of Kiro Gligorov, president of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia), passed along Macedonia Street opposite the Bristol Hotel. At about 9:30 a.m. the blast killed the driver and injured the security officer and others. A hospital statement the next day called his condition serious but stable after surgery, with shrapnel in his brain and a risk to the sight in his right eye.

The driver, Aleksandar Spirovski, died at the scene, as did a passer-by, Risto Hadzimanov. Gligorov survived but lost an eye. Later accounts described about one kilogram of plastic explosive, of a type made for the [Yugoslav People's Army](/organizations/yugoslav-people-s-army), packed into the rear of an old Citroën Ami 8, shaped toward the limousine and detonated by remote control. No one claimed responsibility. With American, British and German help, police checked tens of thousands of vehicles and premises, but detainees were released and nobody was charged; the case was still formally open decades later. Public speculation — Serbian or Bulgarian involvement, nationalists opposed to an accord with Greece, an internal feud, or organized crime — was not backed by evidence made public.

### Constitutional succession

The 1991 constitution separates a permanent end of the presidential mandate from a temporary inability. If the president dies, resigns, is permanently unable to serve, or otherwise loses the mandate, the president of the Assembly holds the office until a successor is elected, and the Constitutional Court decides whether those conditions apply. If the inability is temporary, the Assembly president deputizes and may sit in the Assembly without a vote. October 1995 followed the temporary rule. Parliamentary chairman Stojan Andov, also leader of the Liberal Party, was named acting president on 4 October. The day after the bombing he had said Gligorov's life was not in danger "at this moment." Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski told the [United Nations General Assembly](/organizations/gov-un-general-assembly) that the attempt would not change the country's course.

The acting presidency coincided with the interim accord signed with Greece on 13 September 1995. On 5 October the Assembly voted 110 to one, with four abstentions, to replace the Star of Vergina on the flag with an eight-rayed sun; VMRO-DPMNE called the change illegal. The accord was ratified on 9 October. On 22 October, at [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) fiftieth-anniversary events in New York City, Andov, still described as acting president and speaker, met the presidents of Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey and signed a text on Balkan peace and on road, power and telecommunications links with Western Europe.

### Restoration of the president and end of the first speakership

Gligorov began to resume work before January. On 17 November he met Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski and Andov; his office said that, while he was still rehabilitating at home, he was already carrying out part of his duties. On 23–24 November he received U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, reported then as his first public appearance since the attack. On 22 December he told *Nova Makedonija* he would resume at the beginning of 1996, and on 7 January he attended an Orthodox Christmas mass in Skopje, which that paper called his first public appearance since the bombing. Balkan Insight later dated Andov's interim presidency from October 1995 to January 1996.

The majority that had kept him speaker then split. In 1994 the Alliance of Macedonia — the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, the Liberal Party and the Socialist Party — had won 95 of 120 seats, and Gligorov had asked Crvenkovski to form a government. On 10 February 1996 Crvenkovski dismissed four Liberal ministers. The proposed cabinet gave 13 posts to the Social Democrats, five to the Party for Democratic Prosperity and two to the Socialists, after a quarrel over industrial privatization that had sharpened since mid-1995. Gligorov said it "no longer represents the political formation which brought me to the head of the country and for which the electorate voted," and urged the partners to stay together. Andov announced on 23 February that he would resign as speaker because the new government excluded his party. On 6 March the Assembly elected Tito Petkovski of the Social Democratic Union, by 79 votes to five, with the 29 Liberal deputies abstaining. The Liberals, in government until February, moved into opposition.

## Presidential candidacy and the 2000–2002 speakership

### Committee work, 1996–2000

Andov left the presidency of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) in March 1996. In 1997 the Liberal Party he had led merged with the Democratic Party, and he became president of the council of the new Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). At the 1998 parliamentary election the LDP won four seats, and Andov was returned with Petar Gošev, Latif Pajkovski and Slobodan Danevski. In that Assembly he chaired the committee on monetary and credit policy and banking until the deputies elected him speaker again on 30 November 2000.

### The 1999 presidential election

In the presidential election of 31 October 1999, held to succeed Kiro Gligorov, Andov stood for the LDP, finished fifth of six candidates, and missed the runoff. A Konrad Adenauer Stiftung handbook, drawing on the State Election Commission archive and the OSCE observation report, gives him 111,983 votes, or 10.66 percent. Tito Petkovski of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia led with 343,606 votes (32.71 percent), and Boris Trajkovski of VMRO-DPMNE was second with 219,098 (20.85 percent); Vasil Tupurkovski of the Democratic Alternative and Muharem Nexhipi of the Party for Democratic Prosperity of Albanians were third and fourth, and Muhamed Halili of the Party for Democratic Prosperity sixth. Petkovski and Trajkovski contested a runoff on 14 November. The State Election Commission and the Supreme Court annulled the results in about 230 polling stations, which voted again on 5 December. The [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe](/organizations/organization-for-security-and-co-operation-in-europe) reported final totals of 582,208 votes for Trajkovski and 513,614 for Petkovski. Its mission found the election mostly in line with OSCE commitments, but recorded violations in the second round and the rerun, including extremely high reported turnouts in some districts; the losing candidate accepted the outcome.

At the beginning of 2000 Andov, with Pajkovski and Danevski, left the LDP and re-formed the Liberal Party of Macedonia, and the Assembly's biography lists him as a member of its executive committee.

### Third term as speaker

On 30 November 2000 the Assembly met, at the request of Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski, to consider dismissing members of the government. Speaker Savo Klimovski opened the sitting and resigned. Deputy speaker Iljaz Halimi presided over the election of a successor: Abdurahman Aliti was rejected by 55 votes to 37, with 17 abstentions, and Andov was elected with 65 in favor, 40 against and four abstentions, out of 109 deputies voting. He took the oath, called the vote his third election as speaker, and said he hoped the Assembly would work more effectively for the rest of its term.

That term crossed the 2001 conflict where parliament had to act on the [Ohrid Framework Agreement](/facts/ohrid-agreement), signed on 13 August. Andov, by then of the Liberal Party, had objected that talks sponsored by President Trajkovski included only the main party leaders and left out the Assembly and smaller parties. When a government of national unity was formed in May 2001 he remained speaker, while Srgjan Kerim, the foreign minister from his party, was replaced by Ilinka Mitreva of the Social Democrats. Deputies convened on 31 August to consider constitutional amendments; on 1 September Andov suspended the session and asked Trajkovski and international mediators to assure that Macedonians displaced by the National Liberation Army could return home within 15 to 20 days. Defense Minister Vlado Bučkovski accused him of obstructing the agreement. After meeting Trajkovski and the envoys François Léotard and James Pardew, Andov recalled the Assembly for 3 September, a decision Macedonian media described as made under heavy international pressure. On 16 November the Assembly adopted 15 amendments, each by a two-thirds majority, and proclaimed them by 94 votes to 13, with two abstentions, widening the official use of Albanian and the share of ethnic Albanians in public institutions.

The parliament elected on 15 September 2002 held its first sitting on 3 October 2002 and chose Nikola Popovski of the Social Democratic Union as speaker, ending Andov's term. The VMRO-DPMNE–Liberal Party list won 33 seats in that election, and on 1 November the new Assembly approved a government led by Branko Crvenkovski.

## Later parliamentary work and lustration

### Membership after 2002

Andov remained a member of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) after leaving the speakership. At the elections of 15 September 2002 the Liberal Party stood with VMRO-DPMNE in the “Glavata gore” coalition, which won 33 of 120 seats, and the Assembly’s 2002–2006 report lists Stojan Andov of the Liberal Party with no replacement. As the oldest member he presided over the constitutive session of 3 October 2002.

He was re-elected on 5 July 2006 in a coalition that again included VMRO-DPMNE and the Liberal Party. In that term he sat on the Standing Inquiry Commission for the Protection of the Freedoms and Rights of the Citizen and as a deputy on the commission overseeing the security and intelligence services. A sixth composition, constituted on 21 June 2008, again opened with him in the chair as the oldest member. Its report, for 21 June 2008–14 April 2011, lists him throughout as a Liberal Party MP and, into early 2011, as a co-sponsor of bills and interpellations; in late 2008 he was also a member of the Committee on Constitutional Issues. The Assembly’s account of that composition ends on 14 April 2011.

### The 2008 lustration law

From late 2006 Andov promoted a screen of public office for collaboration with the security services of the former Yugoslavia and of Macedonia. He argued that an informant network still acted as a political police, and that only people who had consciously signed consents to collaborate should be caught. On 22 January 2008 the Assembly adopted the Law on Determination of an Additional Condition for the Performance of a Public Office by 73 votes to none; it was published on 29 January and covered 1944 until it took effect. Office-holders and candidates had to declare that they had not been informers. A commission chosen by a two-thirds majority checked the declarations, and confirmed collaborators were barred from senior posts. The duty also reached judges, clergy, journalists, professors and non-governmental activists, and was to last five years.

VMRO-DPMNE’s Vlatko Gjorčev called the law a correction of past injustices. For the opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, Cvetanka Ivanova said the proposers had met demands on scope and on the two-thirds vote, while Ivanka Cvetanovska warned that it must not discredit opponents. Andov called it a turn toward the future rather than a revival of divisions. The Macedonian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights backed the aim but said in January 2007 that the draft would weaken legal certainty: it would punish informing, which had never been a criminal offence, and any governing party could use the files against opponents. Committee head Mirjana Najčevska added that organisers of abuses would go free while victims were victimised again, because the text relied on corrupted secret-service records.

### Amendments, courts, and criticism

The commission was constituted only in late March 2009, and amendments that May extended application to ten years. On 24 March 2010 the [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court), in U.no.42/2008 and U.no.77/2008, struck out the extension “until the date of entry into force of this Law,” publication of the names of non-filers and of people found to have cooperated, and the clause letting parties, associations, foundations and religious communities copy the test. After the Constitution of 17 November 1991, the court said, later conduct belonged to ordinary democratic mechanisms, and publishing names without a finished procedure was incompatible with dignity. VMRO-DPMNE’s Silvana Boneva called the ruling a serious blow to the young democracy.

In March 2011 the majority pushed the period to 2019 and required statements from journalists, non-governmental organisations, clergy, professors, lawyers and others. On 28 March 2012 the court annulled twelve provisions, restoring the limit of 1945–1991 and rejecting that wider duty. The government of Nikola Gruevski replied with a new law, passed on 20 June 2012 by VMRO-DPMNE and the [Democratic Union for Integration](/organizations/democratic-union-for-integration) against Social Democratic votes. Screening could run until 2006, citizens could request checks, and dossiers could be posted online, including for people enriched in the 1990s. The government spoke of transparency about the communist past; the opposition said the text threatened personal integrity and could be used against critics before local elections.

Andov said the 2008 law had been a consensual check on current office-holders. In April 2012 he called the redraft one-party pressure for political discipline, and in November he said a law “voted through only by the ruling parties” contradicted the court. Uranija Pirovska, of the Helsinki Committee, said the 2012 statute broke [Council of Europe](/organizations/council-of-europe) standards by passing 1991, letting a non-court decide without appeal, and naming people before a judgment. The Venice Commission, in an amicus brief of 14–15 December 2012 requested by the court, warned that such late lustration risked revenge rather than defence of democracy, that private posts lay outside its proper aim, that the person concerned had to be heard, and that publication should follow a final court decision. 028-e) The [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission), in its 2013 progress report, noted the same concerns.

## Writings

### Memoirs and political history

Andov wrote on the economy and the political system and on the end of Yugoslavia and early independence in today’s North Macedonia. The *Macedonian Encyclopedia* says he published several books in those fields and records *Располагање и управљање друштвеним капиталом* (*Disposal and Management of Social Capital*; Belgrade, 1985, second edition 1987). Balkan Insight’s obituary also noted books on the economy and the political system, and novels.

The encyclopedia identifies *На мој начин* (*In My Own Way*; Skopje, 2003) as memoirs and *Од мој агол* (*From My Angle*; Skopje, 2004) as columns from 1997 to 2004. By February 2014 he had also published *Источни патувања* (*Eastern Travels*). That month Matica makedonska issued more than 400 pages on the federation’s rise and disintegration, under the misspelled title *Јосип Брпз Тито и распадот на Југославија*. Later lists give *Јосип Броз Тито и распаѓањето на Југославија* (*Josip Broz Tito and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia*).

*Драматичната 1991 година* (*The Dramatic Year 1991*), studies and recollections, was promoted on 30 November 2015 at the Cinematheque of Macedonia, a Matica edition for his 80th birthday. In July 2018 Matica opened a ten-volume selected works with *На мој начин* again. The other volumes, promoted at the Cinematheque on 30 November 2018, were *Моите патувања*, *Стравот и љубовта*, *Кицо Американецот*, the Tito book, *Приказната на Марија*, *Драматичната 1991 година*, *1992 – година на опасни предизвици*, *Успеси и заговори – 1993 година* and *Пред атентатот и по него*.

*Пред атентатот и по него* treats his presidency of the Assembly of North Macedonia around the 3 October 1995 attack on President Kiro Gligorov. A passage read at the promotion has Gligorov, on Andov’s account, say that Branko Crvenkovski, Tito Petkovski, Blagoja Handžiski, Ljubomir Frčkoski and Jane Minoski asked him to resign—a claim in the book, not a finding on the attack. The 2019 lawsuit cited the book as *До атентатот и по него* (*To the Assassination and After It*).

### Fiction

*Стравот и љубовта* (*The Fear and the Love*; Skopje, 2005, second edition 2006) is classified as a novel. *Кицо Американецот* (*Kico the American*) and the sequel *Враќањето на Американецот* were listed by February 2014, and *Приказната на Марија* (*Maria’s Story*) by November 2015; the reports give no plots.

### The 2019 injunction

In March 2019 Frčkoski, a professor and former interior minister, sued Andov for defamation and insult, saying *До атентатот и по него* accused him of organizing and carrying out the attack on Gligorov and of other crimes.

Basic Court Skopje 2 barred sale and disposal of the book, including by shops, libraries and publishers, until the case ended. A1on reported that the measure took effect on 11 March 2019 and that Frčkoski claimed 900,000 denars (about 14,500 euros) for non-material harm; the order, linked to Judge Nuhi Rustemi and two lay judges, called the book full of “defamatory facts.” Makfax and Skopje1 dated the decision 21 March. Andov called a book ban unprecedented and said defamation belonged in the lawsuit.

In a passage Makfax quoted, Andov writes that at the hospital he took a call from Slobodan Milošević, asked someone he calls “Branko” where Frčkoski was, and was told the minister had gone toward Kriva Palanka, which he called impossible and very suspicious. Frčkoski’s lawyer called that baseless; Andov’s said it concerned a public official and largely repeated remarks already public. On 15 May 2019 the Skopje Appellate Court lifted the sales ban; the defamation case continued.

## Death, honours, and assessments

### Order of 8 September

On 8 September 2021, Independence Day, President Stevo Pendarovski awarded Stojan Andov, first president of the first multi-party Assembly, North Macedonia’s Order of 8 September (Орден „8 Септември“), and by a separate decree gave the same order to the deputies of the 1990–1994 term. The presidency’s list of decorations records decree No. 13 of 6 September 2021 for Andov and decree No. 14 of the same date for those deputies.

Andov’s citation credited his “indelible mark” on parliamentary democracy and the acts that “paved the path for the creation of an independent and sovereign state”; the deputies’ citation named the referendum, the first constitution, anthem and flag. Because of Andov’s age and COVID-19, Pendarovski presented the order at his home, and a recording was shown at the ceremony in the President’s Cabinet, where Nikola Stojanovski and Fadil Zendeli received it for the deputies. Pendarovski said the order had already gone to the first president, Kiro Gligorov, and the first prime minister, Nikola Kljusev.

### Death and commemoration

Andov died on 18 June 2024. MIA, [Deutsche Welle](/organizations/deutsche-welle), Balkan Insight and *Nova Makedonija* gave his age as 89; SDK.mk gave it as 88. *Nova Makedonija* and A1on also give a birth date of 30 November 1935, which would make him 88 on the day he died. None stated a cause. *Nova Makedonija* reported that day that the funeral would be held the next day at the Butel city cemetery in Skopje.

The Assembly sat in commemoration at 13:00 on 19 June, opening with a minute of silence. Speaker Afrim Gashi called Andov “the founder of the new parliamentary tradition in our country.” [Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova](/people/gordana-siljanovska-davkova), President of North Macedonia, called him “a staunch pillar of our modernity” and grouped him with Gligorov, Petar Goshev and Abdurahman Aliti among those to whom she said the peaceful break with Yugoslavia was owed. The presidency’s account adds that she spoke about ideological attacks on Andov and about conflicts from his Yugoslav career.

His wife, Marija, had died in January 2014, after 53 years of marriage; Andov told *Vest* that she had been the head of the family.

### Assessments

Balkan Insight described him as a politician who helped the country move from communism to a multi-party system and from a Yugoslav republic to an independent state.

He led the Liberal Party until its 19 April 1997 merger with the Democratic Party into the Liberal Democratic Party, when he became president of the new party’s council; after the Liberal Party was restored in 1999 he was again elected its president, in 2001 and 2004. A1on dates the end of his second term as speaker, 6 March 1996, to the breakup of the Union for Macedonia coalition.

In 2008 he proposed the lustration law on secret-police collaboration by office-holders. He later said that text, then backed across parliament, had covered only sitting officials, and that a 2012 replacement passed only by the governing VMRO-DPMNE contradicted the Constitutional Court. A law professor at the same discussion said lustration was harming human rights.

In 2019 the Basic Civil Court Skopje 2 banned further sale of Andov’s book *Do atentatot i po nego* after former interior minister Ljubomir Frčkoski sued for defamation. The court said the book implied Frčkoski’s involvement in the 1995 attempt on Gligorov’s life; he sought about €14,500. Andov called a ban on a book a bad precedent. The Appellate Court in Skopje later lifted it.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/stojan-andov