# Tito Petkovski

# Tito Petkovski

Tito Petkovski (Macedonian: Тито Петковски) is a lawyer and politician from North Macedonia, born on 23 January 1945 in the village of Psaca, in the Kriva Palanka area. He graduated from the Faculty of Law in Skopje, worked in the municipal court in Kriva Palanka and in the republic’s bureau of urban planning and public utilities, and has lived in the capital.

A former member of the Assembly of North Macedonia, he sat there from 1990 to 2014, served as a vice-president of its first multi-party composition, and was president of the Assembly from 6 March 1996 to 19 November 1998. Before pluralist elections he held posts in the Macedonian organisation of the [League of Communists of Yugoslavia](/organizations/league-of-communists-of-yugoslavia) and in the Skopje city administration, including as a delegate and vice-president of the city council, and he later became a vice-president of the [Social Democratic Union of Macedonia](/organizations/social-democratic-union-of-macedonia).

In the presidential election of 31 October and 14 November 1999 he was the SDSM candidate. The [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe](/organizations/organization-for-security-and-co-operation-in-europe) recorded a final result of 582,208 votes for [Boris Trajkovski](/people/boris-trajkovski) of [VMRO-DPMNE](/organizations/vmro-dpmne) and 513,614 for Petkovski. The mission found that the vote was held mostly in line with OSCE commitments, but that the second round and reruns in about 230 precincts were marred by serious violations, including in the west of the country and around Skopje, and that the losing candidate eventually accepted the outcome. After the 14 November round, his supporters demonstrated in Skopje and demanded a rerun, alleging that polling in ethnic Albanian constituencies had been rigged.

In November 2005 he left the SDSM and formed the New Social Democratic Party, a split the Inter-Parliamentary Union attributed to disagreements over privatization and health-care spending. The new party won seven seats at the July 2006 parliamentary election. He remained its president until 2022, when he said he would not seek another term at the congress set for 4 June and that he was not leaving politics.

## Early life and legal training

### Birth and education

Tito Petkovski was born on 23 January 1945 in the village of Psaca (Псача), in the Kriva Palanka area of Yugoslav Macedonia. The Assembly's biography for the 2006 term gives that date and place; its Macedonian text records a 1945 birth in the village of Psaca, Kriva Palanka, and lists his nationality as Macedonian, while the Macedonian Encyclopedia uses the regional form Krivopalanko. He was born in Yugoslavia. By 1965 the republic's official gazette appeared in the name of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, now North Macedonia.

Psaca is not the town of Kriva Palanka. On the present municipal map it is a settlement of Rankovce Municipality, in the northeast, which is why older notices use the district name rather than the town. Counts drawn from the State Statistical Office show a small village: 692 inhabitants on 31 March 1981, 538 on 21 June 1994, 539 on 1 November 2002 and 438 on 5 September 2021, of whom 358 were recorded as Macedonian. The biographies say nothing further about his childhood or his schooling before university.

He studied law in Skopje. The Assembly states that he graduated from the Faculty of Law there, and the Macedonian biography adds that he finished with the judicial examination (правосуден испит). The encyclopedia records the same degree. The school is now the Iustinianus Primus Faculty of Law of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, which the university describes as the republic's first state university, formed in 1949. A government decree of 3 November 1951 created the law faculty as a department of the Faculty of Law and Economics of the University of Skopje, and it has been a separate faculty since 1 July 1956. No biography dates his enrolment or diploma. The first year tied to his legal work is 1968, when he was 23.

### Court and planning work

In 1968 Petkovski worked at the Municipal Court in Kriva Palanka. The Law on the Areas of the Municipal and District Courts of General Jurisdiction, adopted in April 1965 and published on 21 April 1965, made that court the court of general jurisdiction for the municipality of Kriva Palanka, and placed it with the municipal courts in Kumanovo and Kratovo under the District Court in Kumanovo. The biographies do not say whether the post was a judgeship, a traineeship or another job in the court, and they name no cases.

From 1971 to 1978 he was a lawyer in the republic's urban-planning service. The Assembly's Macedonian text calls the employer the Republican Institute for Urbanism (Републички завод за урбанизам) and describes him as a jurist (правник); the English text of the 2006 biography supplies the dates and calls it the Republic's Bureau of Urban Planning and Public Utilities. The encyclopedia places the institute in Skopje and treats the court and the institute as the employment that followed the law degree. None of these accounts names a plan, opinion or project. The post is recorded as legal work inside a planning body, not as an appointment of a planner or an architect.

The Macedonian parliamentary biography next places him in the Executive Council of the Assembly of the City of Skopje and then on the City Committee of the League of Communists of Macedonia in Skopje. The encyclopedia lengthens that passage into offices in Karpoš and in the city, including the vice-presidency of the executive council. Those posts open his party career; the Kriva Palanka court and the urban-planning institute are the legal work that precedes it.

## The League of Communists

### Municipal and city posts

Tito Petkovski’s early political work was in Skopje, in the delegated assemblies of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The *Macedonian Encyclopedia* records him as an activist in Karpoš: president of the municipal conference of the youth organization, a member of the municipal committee of the League of Communists of Macedonia (Сојуз на комунистите на Македонија, SKM), and president of the municipality’s socio-political council. He was a delegate in the socio-political council of the city assembly, secretary of the city secretariat for the political system, regulations and administration, and vice-president of Skopje’s Executive Council. Assembly biographies confirm delegate service in the Karpoš assembly, work in the city’s executive council, and a function in the SKM city committee.

In the city party the encyclopedia lists him as a member of the presidency and executive secretary of the SKM city committee, and as a member of the Central Committee’s commission on development and personnel policy. A 2014 study of local secretaries names Todor Pelivanov, not Petkovski, as secretary of the Skopje city committee from 1988 to 1992. The SKM was the Macedonian organization of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which monopolized power in Yugoslavia until the 1990 elections.

### Secretary of the Presidency

The encyclopedia lists Petkovski as secretary of the Central Committee of the SKM, without dates. The nomenklatura study, drawing mainly on interviews, dates that secretaryship to 1988–1990, calls his views liberal, and counts him as a direct participant in the transformation. It places him with the secretaries and members of the Central Committee Presidency, not as party president.

The president of the League of Communists of Macedonia was then Petar Goshev. The encyclopedia records his election at the Tenth Congress in Skopje on 25–27 November 1989, the last congress at which the SKM was the republic’s only party, and credits him with democratization, a more independent line toward the federal League, and the later conversion of the organization. Citing the state archive’s congress file, the nomenklatura study treats those dates as a reform current’s victory over a conservative one and dates his chairmanship to 1989–1991. A history of the independence years places the congress in December 1989 and likewise presents Goshev as the Central Committee president who pressed for a commission on social reforms. [Branko Crvenkovski](/people/branko-crvenkovski), a Presidency member, worked in 1989 on Goshev’s commission for socio-economic reforms; Georgi Spasov, Sofija Todorova and Nikola Popovski are listed with him as Presidency members who stayed through the change.

### From the SKM to the SDSM

The party contested the first competitive elections as the League of Communists of Macedonia – Party for Democratic Transformation (Сојуз на комунистите на Македонија – Партија за демократска преобразба, SKM–PDP). The independence history dates the new name to a decision of the SKM Presidency on 11 June 1990 and states that it was kept until 20 April 1991. Goshev’s commission on social reforms dealt with a democratic civil society, national minorities, privatization and the market; the nomenklatura study names Vlade Popovski, Ljubomir Frčkovski and Svetomir Škarić as the lawyers on the commission for social reforms who drafted the 1990 election law.

Voting for the 120-seat Assembly opened on 11 November 1990, continued on 25 November and ended with a round on 9 December. SKM–PDP won 31 seats; VMRO-DPMNE, led by [Ljubčo Georgievski](/people/ljubco-georgievski), won 38, and no party had a majority. SKM–PDP led the first round with 188,030 votes (24.7 percent) to VMRO-DPMNE’s 17.7 percent. Goshev was elected on 11 November; Petkovski and Crvenkovski also took SKM–PDP seats. The candidate put forward for president of the republic was [Kiro Gligorov](/people/kiro-gligorov), a former League official and adviser to Yugoslavia’s last prime minister, [Ante Marković](/people/ante-markovic). Marković also placed [Stojan Andov](/people/stojan-andov), another long-serving League economist, at the head of the Alliance of Reform Forces of Macedonia, while Ljubisav Ivanov led the Socialist Party, drawn from the Socialist Alliance.

The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (Социјалдемократски сојуз на Македонија, SDSM) states that it was founded on 21 April 1991, and that the rename from SKM–PDP was decided at the Eleventh Congress after an initiative of the Central Committee Presidency on 14 February 1991 and a Central Committee proposal on 23 February. Its congress list dates the First Congress to 20 April 1991 and records Crvenkovski’s election as president; the independence history also uses 20 April, while the nomenklatura study dates the congress to 21 April and says Goshev then left the chair. The Assembly’s English biography calls Petkovski a member of SDSM from its foundation. A minority that rejected the change split in 1992 as the League of Communists of Macedonia – Movement for Freedom. Goshev left SDSM in 1993 and founded the Democratic Party.

## The first multi-party parliaments

### The 1990 election and the vice-presidency

The first competitive elections for the 120-seat Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, a republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, opened on 11 November 1990 in single-member districts and continued with a second round on 25 November and further polling in December. Turnout was 84.82 percent on 11 November and 76.75 percent in the districts that voted again on 25 November. VMRO-DPMNE won 38 seats and the League of Communists of Macedonia–Party for Democratic Transformation (SKM-PDP) 31. The Party for Democratic Prosperity won 17 seats and a [joint list](/organizations/joint-list) with the [National Democratic Party](/organizations/national-democratic-party) 5; Reform Forces lists won 17, Socialist lists 6, the Party of Yugoslavs 2, the National Democratic Party alone 1, and independents 3. No list held a majority.

The Assembly was constituted on 8 January 1991, with Stojan Andov elected president. Petkovski, a former secretary of the League of Communists, was a deputy in that parliament and from 25 January 1991 a vice-president, with Kiro Popovski and Xheladin Murati; Dragi Arsov was a vice-president only until 5 December 1991. On 25 January the Assembly adopted a Declaration of Sovereignty; on 27 January it elected Kiro Gligorov president of the republic, and on 20 March an expert government under [Nikola Kljusev](/people/nikola-kljusev).

### Independence and the new constitution

Amendments of 7 June 1991 dropped "Socialist" from the republic's name. On 6 August the Assembly called a referendum asking whether citizens favoured a sovereign and independent Macedonia with a right to enter a future union of the sovereign states of Yugoslavia. The vote, on 8 September 1991, is marked as Independence Day. Of 1,495,807 eligible citizens, 1,132,981 (75.75 percent) voted; 1,079,308 (72.16 percent of the electorate) voted yes, 39,639 voted no, and 13,648 ballots were invalid. The referendum commission reported on 18 September that no complaints had been filed. On 17 September the Assembly verified the result and declared the Republic of Macedonia a sovereign and independent state; the Assembly institute's history treats the referendum as consultative.

On 17 November 1991, Andov presiding, the Assembly adopted the Constitution by 92 votes, above the required two-thirds of all deputies, and the promulgation decision by 96. Andov signed the decision in Skopje that day; the text was published on 22 November. It defined the republic as a sovereign, independent, democratic and social state and cited the 8 September referendum. Petkovski was a vice-president of the Assembly that adopted it; the session record does not list him among the speakers on the final text.

### The 1994 Assembly and Andov's resignation

Elections for all 120 seats, the first since independence, were held on 16 and 30 October 1994, with some constituencies voting again as late as 13 November after irregularities. The Alliance of Macedonia won 95 seats: the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia 58, the [Liberal Party](/organizations/liberal-party) 29 and the Socialist Party 8. The Party for Democratic Prosperity won 10, the National Democratic Party 4, the Democratic Party of Macedonia 1, other lists 3 and independents 7. VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Party boycotted the second round and sought annulment; about 150 foreign observers nevertheless found the poll generally free and fair, with reservations about the registers. Turnout fell from 77.28 to 57.8 percent in a campaign shaped by the economy, a trade blockade by Greece, sanctions on Serbia and relations with neighbours.

Gligorov, the Alliance's presidential candidate, defeated Ljubiša Georgievski of VMRO-DPMNE. On 28 November he asked Branko Crvenkovski, the SDSM leader and incumbent prime minister, to form a government, approved by the Assembly on 20 December. Andov was re-elected president of the Assembly on 19 November 1994, and Petkovski, returned on the Alliance list, was again a vice-president from 24 November, with Abdurahman Aliti and Kiro Popovski.

On 10 February 1996 Crvenkovski dismissed the Liberal ministers after differences with Andov, Liberal leader and Assembly president, over privatizing obsolete industrial enterprises and over personal disagreements; Gligorov had wanted [the Liberals](/organizations/the-liberals) retained. Andov's term ended on 6 March 1996. He opened that day's session, placed his written resignation first on the agenda, and gave the chair to vice-president Blaže Filipovski, who recorded that Andov's tenure as president had ended. The Liberal group said the reconstructed government had unilaterally ended the Alliance.

## President of the Assembly

### Election in March 1996

On 6 March 1996 the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) elected Tito Petkovski President, succeeding Stojan Andov. The chamber dated from the October 1994 election, when the Alliance for Macedonia won 95 of 120 seats: 58 for the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), 29 for the Liberal Party and eight for the Socialist Party. VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Party of Macedonia boycotted the second round. About 150 foreign observers called the poll generally free and fair, despite reservations about the registers. On 20 December 1994 the Assembly approved the cabinet President Kiro Gligorov had asked Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski to form. Andov, a Liberal, had presided from 8 January 1991 and again from 19 November 1994.

Andov opened the 40th sitting in Skopje at 10:20 and put his written resignation first. The agenda passed by 89 votes, none against. Vice-President Blaže Filipovski took the chair, recorded that the office had ended, and adjourned until 14:00. Sixty-seven deputies of the SDSM, the Socialist Party, the Party for Democratic Prosperity, the Party for the Complete Emancipation of the Roma, the Social Democratic Party and independent Hisen Ramadani nominated Petkovski, then a vice-president and SDSM coordinator. Ljupčo Popovski cited Article 67, which requires a majority of all representatives. Ace Kocevski said the Liberal group would abstain: the new government had, in its view, unilaterally dissolved the Alliance for Macedonia, though the group had no personal objection to Petkovski, who had stood on the alliance list.

No one asked for a secret ballot. The public vote was 79 in favour, five against and 29 abstentions, and the election ended his vice-presidency. He read the prescribed solemn declaration, thanked the deputies and Andov, and called himself a first among equals. The sitting ended at 15:00.

### The speakership and foreign contacts

Under the 1991 Constitution as amended on 6 January 1992, the President represents the Assembly, convenes its meetings, ensures that the rules of procedure are applied, and gives notice of elections of representatives and of the President of the Republic. The office excludes another public office, a profession or a party appointment. Promulgation of a law needs his signature and the head of state’s. He chairs the Council for Inter-Ethnic Relations and, where the Constitution so provides, exercises or temporarily fills the presidency of the Republic. The Assembly dates the term 6 March 1996 to 19 November 1998.

Its biographical note lists him as a member of the Council of the [Inter-Parliamentary Union](/organizations/inter-parliamentary-union). On 15 May 1998, at [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) Headquarters in New York City, he met Njuguna M. Mahugu of Kenya, then President of the Security Council; the UN caption gave Petkovski’s office as President of the Assembly of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. On 6 August 1998 he announced the parliamentary election date.

### The 1998 election and the handover

Voting on 18 October and 1 November 1998 filled 120 seats, 85 by two-round majority and 35 by proportional representation, with a 5 percent threshold and the D’Hondt method. The Inter-Parliamentary Union described a contest between the SDSM-led Alliance for Macedonia and an opposition coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Alternative. Mainstream parties sought normal relations with Greece and Bulgaria and closer ties to the European Union and NATO; at home the SDSM defended its record in office and the opposition called for investment and jobs. Turnout was about 72.9 percent, then about 70 percent.

An OSCE/ODIHR mission, invited by the foreign ministry and in Skopje from 17 September, called the elections a significant improvement and noted that the Assembly had adopted the new election law with wide consensus. It also found Article 88 unclear: appeals courts upheld the election commission against VMRO-DPMNE, requiring for a first-round win an absolute majority of votes cast and support from at least one-third of registered voters. Observers also reported group and proxy voting, slow results and irregularities in districts 66 and 85.

In the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s table, VMRO-DPMNE had 49 seats, the SDSM 27, the Party for Democratic Prosperity 14, the Democratic Alternative 13 and the [Democratic Party of Albanians](/organizations/democratic-party-of-albanians) 10; it put the opposition at 62 seats to 27 for the SDSM. At 10:10 on 19 November 1998 the oldest member, academician Nikola Kljusev, opened the constitutive sitting in the Government building. After 112 mandates were verified—eight were still outstanding—the sitting held that Article 93 put the government into resignation, because the prime minister and some ministers were now deputies. [Savo Klimovski](/people/savo-klimovski), a law professor and a founder of the Democratic Alternative, was elected by 69 votes to 24, repeated the 1996 declaration and took the chair from Kljusev. The Assembly dates him from that day to 30 November 2000. On 1 December parliament approved the cabinet of Ljubčo Georgievski, drawn from VMRO-DPMNE, the Democratic Alternative and the Democratic Party of Albanians.

## The 1999 presidential election

### The campaign and the first round

The [Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights](/organizations/office-for-democratic-institutions-and-human-rights) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe opened an election observation mission in the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) on 20 September 1999 for the 31 October presidential election. Six candidates stood. The incumbent, Kiro Gligorov, was not among them: the vote was to replace the retiring president, who left office at the end of 1999.

The official campaign ran from 30 September to 29 October, with well-attended rallies and a tone that stayed constructive before sharpening near polling day. Observers listed the economy, unemployment, education, relations with neighbours, and accession to NATO and the European Union as the main themes. Muharem Nexhipi of the Democratic Party of Albanians and Muhamed Halili of the Party for Democratic Prosperity stressed the university in Tetovo, official status for Albanian, Albanian employment in the administration, and Kosovo’s independence. Tito Petkovski of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia and Boris Trajkovski of the governing VMRO-DPMNE both told Reuters they opposed Skopje’s recognition of Taiwan, and Petkovski said he would not receive Taipei’s envoy. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Petkovski also opposed a concession on Albanian-language higher education, while Trajkovski was the candidate of Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski’s party after it declined to back coalition partner Vasil Tupurkovski. Most outlets gave candidates roughly equal time, but the public broadcaster’s coverage was higher in quality for Trajkovski.

A first-round winner needed 50 percent plus one of a registered electorate given in the legal section of the OSCE report as 1,610,340; elsewhere the same report says 1,610,040 voters were registered. On polling day, 155 short-term observers from 27 states, with an eight-member delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the [Council of Europe](/organizations/council-of-europe), visited more than 900 of 2,973 stations. They found the round generally lawful, alongside proxy and family voting, especially in ethnic Albanian areas. The Party for Democratic Prosperity alleged intimidation by the Democratic Party of Albanians; the mission did not find it on that scale, and its preliminary statement called the round generally in line with OSCE commitments.

With 74 of 85 constituencies in, Reuters put Petkovski at about 33 percent and Trajkovski, then deputy prime minister, at 21. The IFES Election Guide compilation, whose shares add to 100 percent, lists Petkovski 33.20 percent, Trajkovski 20.60, Tupurkovski of the Democratic Alternative 16.00, Nexhipi 14.80, Stojan Andov of the [Liberal Democratic Party](/organizations/liberal-democratic-party) 11.20, and Halili 4.20, from 1,103,286 valid ballots out of 1,120,087 cast and 1,610,340 registered. Nobody reached a majority of the registered electorate, so the top two advanced.

### The runoff and allegations of fraud

The second-round campaign, through 12 November, was more negative, though the mission reported no violent incidents in that period. MTV1 still covered the race but used news to highlight the government; the largely publicly owned *Nova Makedonija* favoured Trajkovski, and *Utrinski Vesnik* favoured Petkovski. The Democratic Party of Albanians said it would back Trajkovski, and commentators expected ethnic Albanian votes to decide the result.

On 14 November, 105 short-term observers visited 725 stations in 77 districts. They rated 85 percent satisfactory or better; the poor ratings were concentrated in ethnic Albanian areas in the west and around Skopje. The OSCE said the vote was lawful in most of the country, but that many stations there saw serious violations, including proxy and multiple voting and turnout it considered unrealistic, such as 96.66 percent in Lipkovo and 102 percent at one station in that district. The Party for Democratic Prosperity had withdrawn its board members, which observers called regrettable.

The Social Democratic Union filed about 300 complaints, alleging intimidation, proxy voting and minutes that did not tally. The State Election Commission ordered a new vote in 31 stations and rejected the rest; the Supreme Court, in 23 decisions, added 199, making 230 of 2,973 stations in 24 districts. About 150,000 voter cards were unclaimed, and a break-in at the Ministry of Justice in Tetovo took thousands; using those figures, the court found some district turnouts impossible. Unofficial VMRO-DPMNE totals gave Trajkovski 566,482 votes to Petkovski’s 490,740, and Petkovski accused the other side of forging ballots. The 15 November OSCE statement still called the election generally satisfactory, while saying the extreme turnout had to be examined.

### The partial rerun, protests, and the outcome

The BBC reported on 15 November that thousands of opposition supporters demonstrated in Skopje after unofficial figures put Trajkovski above 53 percent, following late ethnic Albanian support. Petkovski’s supporters demanded a rerun, alleging rigging in ethnic Albanian constituencies, while monitors at that point still called the ballot generally satisfactory.

The introduction of the OSCE final report places the reruns on 7 December 1999. The body of the same report, and a preliminary statement issued in Skopje on 6 December, say the 230 stations voted again on 5 December. Eighty-five short-term observers covered 220 of them and recorded both efforts to improve the process and fresh violations: ballot stuffing, repeat voting with extra cards, proxy voting, and still-implausible turnout. In Labunista they watched VMRO-DPMNE activists stuff a box after Social Democratic members left, and in Studenicani a party representative filling out multiple papers; clashes in Lipkovo and Struga hospitalised activists.

From about 14:00, on instructions passed by mobile phone, Social Democratic board members and observers left most rerun stations. The party cited violence and intimidation; observers agreed that was true in some stations but not all, and said the walkout removed a check the count needed. The Social Democratic Union then complained in 224 of the 230 stations and withdrew the complaints the next day, so the State Election Commission could declare the result final. The final report gives Trajkovski 582,208 votes and Petkovski 513,614, and says the losing candidate eventually accepted the outcome. It judged the elections mostly in line with OSCE commitments, while treating the violations in parts of the second round and the reruns as serious enough to require urgent repair.

## The break with the SDSM and the New Social Democratic Party

### Disputes inside the SDSM

Petkovski remained in the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) after losing the 1999 presidential election. The breach with the leadership is recorded at the extraordinary congress of 26 November 2004, held after Branko Crvenkovski gave up his party offices on becoming president and after Prime Minister Hari Kostov resigned. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that the candidates for the chairmanship—which the ministers had agreed should also mean the premiership—included Defence Minister Vlado Bučkovski, Deputy Prime Minister Radmila Shekerinska and Petkovski. It described Petkovski as an outspoken critic of government policy and as not close to Crvenkovski. Bučkovski won both rounds, against Shekerinska and Petkovski and then against Shekerinska, and was nominated prime minister the same day.

In December 2005 Petkovski told *Utrinski vesnik* that the 2004 ballot had been regular but that delegates had been arranged in advance, including through jobs in local defence offices. He said proposals he made in the leadership and in the Assembly did not match the SDSM elite, so he felt tolerated rather than heard, and that the congress convinced him to leave. He denied that hostility to Bučkovski was the motive, while calling him a liberal without a social-democratic manner, and said Bučkovski had offered him the ambassadorship in Athens or in Ljubljana if he stayed.

### The 2005 departure

Published dates do not match. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, reviewing the 5 July 2006 elections, wrote that the SDSM was further weakened when Petkovski left in November 2005 to form the New Social Democratic Party over ideological differences on privatization and health-care spending. Balkan Insight’s 2014 profile also puts the resignation in November and the party in December, with a similar social-democratic ideology. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights dated the formation to October 2005, identifying him as a former senior SDSM official, former Speaker and the 1999 presidential candidate. It set the split among new groups fragmenting ethnic-Macedonian politics since 2002, with Ljubčo Georgievski’s VMRO–People’s Party, a late-2004 break from VMRO-DPMNE, and the [Democratic Renewal of Macedonia](/organizations/democratic-renewal-of-macedonia), formed in January 2006.

The contemporary press account is *Utrinski vesnik* of 3 December 2005. Petkovski said he had left the SDSM after 15 years and had launched the party the previous Wednesday, 30 November, at Skopje’s Universal Hall, which the paper called both a convention and a founding assembly. He likened the split to that of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, called the SDSM a political friend he would help to reform rather than an enemy, and did not exclude a coalition with it or with any party, including VMRO-DPMNE, if a common platform could be agreed.

### Founding congress and programme

A party statement carried in full by the Media Information Agency on 17 December 2025, for the twentieth anniversary, gives a timetable the 2005 interview does not. It says a press conference at the Aleksandar Palas hotel on 23 November 2005 first announced a new subject; that Petkovski declared the party’s entry into politics at the 30 November convention; and that a founding congress on 17 December 2005 at the Macedonian National Theatre adopted the statute and political platform and elected the first organs. That congress is later than the interview’s “founding assembly,” and both are later than the October date in the OSCE report.

The interview is the fullest contemporary statement of the programme. The Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia), he said, had social-democratic labels, and right-wing parties that borrowed social language, but no practice of equality, solidarity and social justice. The new party would stand with people who lived by their labour, not with big capital. He accused the rich of the transition of restoring what he called wild capitalism, citing construction pay of 6,000 to 7,000 denars for a full day’s work and unions that did not defend those workers. He wanted institutions to protect labour and ability, and a middle class as a balance against extremes. He would not reopen privatization or conduct “witch hunts,” but would test wealth by tax paid and leave crimes to the courts. Financing, he said, would come from many smaller donors rather than one patron. He preferred a regular election, an early one only if it might hasten European Union candidate status, granted that December, and an electoral law on OSCE lines in force at least six months before the vote.

## Elections, coalitions, and parliamentary work

### The 2006 election

Early elections for all 120 seats in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, now North Macedonia, were held on 5 July 2006. Turnout was 55.98 per cent. The New Social Democratic Party (NSDP), formed by Tito Petkovski after he left the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), stood alone and won 57,043 votes, 6.09 per cent, and seven seats. A coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE took 45 seats, the SDSM-led Together for Macedonia 32, the [Democratic Union for Integration](/organizations/democratic-union-for-integration)–Party for Democratic Prosperity coalition 17, the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) 11, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–People’s Party six, and the Democratic Renewal of Macedonia and the Party for European Future one each.

An Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe mission found the voting generally in line with international standards, but recorded ballot-box stuffing, group voting and vote-buying in some stations, and criticised the State Election Commission for dismissing complaints without review. The Supreme Court ordered a repeat in 29 stations on 19 July, after which the commission rejected the remaining complaints. President Branko Crvenkovski mandated Nikola Gruevski to form a government. On 15 August Gruevski announced a coalition of VMRO-DPMNE, the DPA, the NSDP and non-partisan members, sworn in on 26 August. Balkan Insight reported that the NSDP received ministerial posts, that two of its deputies later joined VMRO-DPMNE, and that the party stayed in the cabinet until the next election. Petkovski sat for electoral unit 1, not as a minister.

### Later coalition lists

The Assembly dissolved itself on 12 April 2008; the SDSM and the NSDP boycotted the vote. At the 1 June election, repeated in some stations on 15 and 29 June, the NSDP joined the SDSM-led “Sun – Coalition for Europe”, with the Liberal Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and four smaller parties. The list won 27 seats, against 63 for VMRO-DPMNE’s “For a Better Macedonia”. Observers found the poll well run but short of some OSCE and Council of Europe commitments after violence that killed one person. Balkan Insight attributed three Sun seats to the NSDP; the Assembly’s 2008–2011 roll named Petkovski, Goran Misovski and Sonja Mirakovska. Gruevski’s next cabinet paired VMRO-DPMNE with the DUI, so the NSDP was in opposition.

On 5 June 2011 an SDSM-led coalition that again included the NSDP took 42 of 123 seats, against 56 for VMRO-DPMNE, which governed once more with the DUI. Balkan Insight counted four NSDP seats, matching the Assembly list of Petkovski, Misovski, Nikolche Acevski and Mirakovska. At the 27 April 2014 early election the SDSM list won 34 seats and VMRO-DPMNE 61. SDSM leader [Zoran Zaev](/people/zoran-zaev) said the party and its partners would neither recognise the result nor accept the mandates. Balkan Insight recorded three NSDP seats; the Assembly’s 2014–2018 composition listed Misovski, Ljubomir Josifovski and Mirakovska, not Petkovski.

On 11 December 2016 an SDSM-led coalition, “For Life”, of 14 parties, included the NSDP, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Renewal of Macedonia and smaller partners. It won 49 seats to VMRO-DPMNE’s 51. Mirakovska was 69th and Misovski 94th on the list, and the 2016 Assembly page recorded those two as the NSDP’s deputies.

On 15 July 2020 the “We Can” (*Možeme*) list, an OSCE-described 23-party coalition of the SDSM, BESA and smaller parties, won 46 seats to VMRO-DPMNE’s 44. Misovski, sixth, and Mirakovska, 26th, were elected on that list and sat as NSDP deputies. In April 2022 *Nezavisen* reported that the party’s parliamentary representation was still those two deputies.

For 8 May 2024 the NSDP signed, on 27 March, the SDSM-led Coalition for a European Future, with the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Renewal of Macedonia and other smaller parties. The list won 18 seats; VMRO-DPMNE’s “Your Macedonia” won 58. From 28 May 2024 the Assembly counted two NSDP deputies, Mirakovska and Misovski.

### Committees and the Assembly record

In the 2006–2008 Assembly Petkovski chaired the Committee on European Issues and sat on the committees for constitutional issues and for defence and security. The same biography lists Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union membership with his earlier offices, not the 2006 working bodies. In 2008–2011 he chaired the Committee on Transport, Communications and Environment, was a member of the [National Council](/organizations/national-council) for European Integrations and the Committee on Constitutional Issues, and a deputy member of the Defence and Security Committee. From 2011 to 2014 he stayed on the constitutional committee, joined the National European Integration Council, and chaired the committee supervising interception of communications by the interior and defence ministries. He was not among the NSDP deputies elected in 2014, 2016, 2020 or 2024; those seats were held by Misovski and Mirakovska, with Josifovski only in the 2014–2018 record.

## The name dispute and Euro-Atlantic policy

### A geographic qualifier

While Petkovski led the New Social Democratic Party, Greece’s objection to the constitutional name Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) kept the country out of NATO. After Bucharest in April 2008, where the allies withheld an invitation until a mutually acceptable name was found, his party asked the Assembly for one state strategy on the dispute. President Branko Crvenkovski and Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski still had no joint reply to the UN mediator, and VMRO-DPMNE had not settled its line. Petkovski said listing it last was meant to keep it off the floor, and that a debate should stop president, prime minister and parties calling one another traitors or saviours. The Assembly adopted the resolution in early November 2008.

He also argued for a compound name. A recording posted on 1 June 2012, headlined as a promise to rename Macedonia at once, shows him, from the opposition benches aligned with Crvenkovski, saying he wanted a geographic qualifier. Netpress in May 2014, accusing him of serving Greece, quoted “My position is a geographic qualifier on which Macedonia and Greece will agree,” and said he had offered Upper Macedonia or Northern Macedonia. In July 2013 VMRO-DPMNE’s communications centre called him the only deputy who had asked, at a sitting, for the name to be changed. That month a court ordered him to pay about 10,600 euros over an October 2012 claim in *Fokus* that Gruevski had proposed “Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)” to the UN in 2008, a penalty he later called unjust.

### The Prespa Agreement

Petkovski campaigned for a “yes” in the consultative referendum of 30 September 2018 on the [Prespa Agreement](/facts/prespa-agreement), which set the name Republic of North Macedonia. He stood with the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia government of Zoran Zaev and against the boycott he blamed on VMRO-DPMNE. At Kočani on 18 September he said every cabinet had negotiated and none had finished, and that the text was a “historic chance,” for Macedonians and the country’s other citizens, of international recognition of identity, language and nation. Turning from years of demanding a referendum to a boycott was, he said, “not a patriotic act.”

Turnout was 36.87 percent, short of the 50 percent for a binding result, while 91.48 percent of votes cast favoured the deal; Zaev said he would seek opposition deputies or call an election. On 19 October the Assembly opened the amendments by 80 votes to 39. Most of the VMRO-DPMNE group left; eight deputies from that party and its coalition voted with the government and were expelled. On 11 January 2019, by 81 votes and without that party present, it wrote “Republic of North Macedonia” into the constitution, with citizenship “Macedonian / citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia.”

### NATO, the European Union, and stability

On 13 September 2018 in Gostivar, with party secretary Kristijan Trajkovski and officials from the sixth electoral district, he treated the agreement as a question of security between ethnic communities. Makfax, carrying the party account, quoted him saying that weak institutions had turned diversity into crime and “ethnically coloured” politics, leaving the state “above the abyss of destabilisation.” Membership of what he called the world’s most powerful military alliance would protect the borders and turn the country from a factor of destabilisation into one of regional stability. European Union values, he said, were the strongest bond among the communities; the agreement was “an investment in our future,” with no better chance later.

After Bulgaria blocked EU talks, in the bilateral dispute over history and identity, he blamed Germany as well. On 18 February 2021 he told MKD.mk that Bulgaria could not veto, or press history and identity, unless Germany stood behind it, and that [Ekaterina Zaharieva](/people/ekaterina-zaharieva)’s claim that Bulgaria was not alone meant Germany. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, he said, had rejected those conditions as contrary to the Copenhagen criteria. On 22 November 2021, on *Studio 10*, he called Bulgaria “extremely destructive,” a “pampered favourite” and a disgrace to the Union, “extremely incorrect” toward Macedonia, while saying the EU could discipline members, as with Poland, and that a new government in Sofia and United States pressure might change the climate.

## Leadership succession

### The decision not to stand in 2022

On 13 April 2022 Tito Petkovski, founder and president of the New Social Democratic Party (NSDP) since its 2005 break from the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, said he would not seek another term at the fifth regular congress, set for 4 June. He told *Lokalno* that he was not leaving politics, only making room for younger members to lead the party. In remarks carried from *Sloboden Pečat*, he said that "enough is enough, if it is for the good," and that after 17 years the NSDP needed new energy. The party then had two members of the Assembly of North Macedonia, Goran Misovski and Sonja Mirakovska. Plusinfo named party vice-president Misovski and organizational secretary Kristijan Trajkovski as the most serious possible successors.

### The June congress

The handover turned on the statute and the candidate list. On 12 May Petkovski told Nova TV that a preparation board had named Misovski the sole candidate only after he had closed the sitting and left. The board, he said, could propose names but not determine them; municipal organizations had forwarded ten candidates; and the debate was to continue at the Central Board. On 14 May that board confirmed Misovski alone. Trajkovski said he had filed a candidacy and a programme and could still nominate himself on the day. On 26 May Petkovski said ten executive-board members led by Misovski and Mirakovska had blocked a contest of programmes, and that Misovski had refused a debate and wanted the post "at any cost." Trajkovski denied that he had withdrawn.

In Skopje on 4 June the hall split between Misovski and Mirakovska and Trajkovski, whom Denesen reported as backed by Petkovski, with open quarrels. Petkovski attended but did not chair, citing the conflict, and called a single candidacy impermissible. Television 24 reported that Mirakovska presided and said no party president had led a congress, while Misovski answered that no leader stays forever but that Petkovski would keep a place of honour. Trajkovski withdrew, saying Misovski's supporters had "kidnapped" the working presidency and engineered the delegate lists, so that decisions of that body would be illegitimate. Of 493 delegates, 426 attended; of 314 ballots, 308 were for Misovski, three against and three invalid. Delegates also chose an 81-member central board and a nine-member supervisory board and adopted statute changes and a four-year programme. Misovski accused Petkovski of proposing a new party name, and answered that Branko Crvenkovski and Zoran Zaev had left the SDSM, and Ljubčo Georgievski and Nikola Gruevski had left VMRO-DPMNE, while both parties continued.

### Relations with the new leadership

Petkovski wrote that the new leadership's first act was to ask the [government of North Macedonia](/organizations/government-of-north-macedonia), then led by Dimitar Kovačevski, to dismiss Trajkovski, director since 2017 of the public enterprise for the construction and management of residential and business premises. He said the request gave no reason and no criticism of Trajkovski's work, and called the move "personal vanity and pure revanchism." A1on reported the dismissal two days before Petkovski's reaction of 30 June. He said the cabinet acted the day it received the proposal, without a check or notice to Trajkovski, and warned that a thin majority could not afford a clash with Misovski, an MP. Unquestioned coalition staffing, he argued, meant partocracy, and the new leadership would "break the party up by itself." Nova TV, A1on and Makfax published that text without a reply from Misovski or a government account of the grounds. His public answer stayed the congress claim that the Central Board had settled the candidacy.

## Personal life

### Family

Curricula published by the Assembly of North Macedonia give Tito Petkovski's birth, legal training and residence, but they do not name a spouse or children. A contemporary news report that states his family situation is a profile in the Beirut daily *L'Orient-Le Jour* of 12 November 1999, when he was the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. It wrote that Petkovski, born on 23 January 1945, was married and the father of two daughters, and it gave no names.

The same profile is the main contemporary sketch of his manner: it said he had used a long record in party and public office to build a reputation for seriousness, and that he was generally judged to have led a campaign without sparkle, drawing on the popularity of the outgoing president, Kiro Gligorov. The paper called him the representative of the conservative line in the SDSM and listed family, employment, democracy and stability as the principles he advanced. It added that younger people disliked his forename because it recalled Josip Broz Tito, and that his enemies accused him of keeping close ties with Belgrade. An English rendering of the *Macedonian Encyclopedia* entry, which follows his legal work and political offices, likewise names no relatives.

### Languages and residence

Assembly biographies identify him as Macedonian — in the Macedonian text, „Македонец“ — and state that he lives in Skopje, in North Macedonia. A French curriculum on the Assembly site repeats the residence as „Il habite à Skopje“ and places his birth in 1945 in the village of Psaca, Kriva Palanka. Another English member's page gives the date 23 January 1945 in Psaca and records the law degree as taken in Skopje.

On languages, the former-presidents biography says that he is fluent in French, with a knowledge of English. The Macedonian biography, published in Macedonian, says that he knows French well and also uses English („Добро го знае францускиот, а се служи и со англискиот јазик“). One English curriculum dates membership of the Assembly from 1990 and another from 1991; both keep the Skopje residence and the same description of his French and English. The former-presidents note places that residence beside Skopje offices — delegate in the municipal assembly of Karpos and delegate and vice-president of the Skopje city council — and beside membership of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and of parliamentary cooperation groups with Greece and with Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/tito-petkovski