Skopje, 16 March 2024 (MIA) — The Party of Pensioners has backed Stevo Pendarovski as a presidential candidate, giving him their support at a convention held in Skopje on Saturday.

Party president Ilija Nikolovski said Pendarovski had so far successfully performed the duties of President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

Nikolovski also said the country had not seen a more competent person as a presidential candidate in recent history.

Listing several reasons Pendarovski should serve a second term, Nikolovski said the President had been strongly committed to the country's membership in NATO and the EU and was everyone's President, regardless of people's ethnic, religious, political or other affiliations.

"Pendarovski hasn't made a single strategic mistake," the Party of Pensioners leader said, adding that the President was also not linked to any corruption affairs or cases of conflict of interests, or any nepotism, clientelism or cronyism.

Mentioning his opponent Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, Nikolovski said she had switched several parties. Also, he added, by disputing the Prespa Agreement, she was shutting the door to Europe.

In his speech at the convention, President Pendarovski recalled April 27, 2017.

"Five years later, not only have they not apologized – any of them, [not even] the party president who was personally appointed by his predecessor to succeed him – but they are also backing a candidate who has announced pardoning the ones whose main political goal [in storming Parliament] was to beat and kill people so as not to allow the peaceful transition of power to those who had the majority of MPs at that moment," Pendarovski said.

In his remarks, the President also talked about the benefits of the country's NATO membership. mr/