Nikola Gruevski served as the prime minister of North Macedonia between 2006 and 2016. Gruevski became prime minister on a wave of anti-elite sentiment in a country that was only 15 years old. Whilst initially pro-Western in outlook, Gruevski, and his right-wing party VMRO, became increasingly irritated by the Western powers’ ambivalence towards Macedonia, and began making not-so-furtive gestures towards Russia.
The reason I have decided to release this episode alongside the Assad episode is that both Syria and North Macedonia are examples of countries neglected by the West. Just as President Obama arguably left the the Syrian people in the lurch by failing to respond to the so-called red-line of chemical weapons, the EU have indisputably failed North Macedonia by making the country jump through hoops towards EU membership, only to repeatedly palm the Macedonians off.
My guest for this episode is Vlora Reçica (@vlorarechica), who works as a researcher at Macedonian think tank Institute for Democracy (@IDSCS_Skopje). Vlora and her colleagues have recently released a research paper called the Populist Citizen: Why Citizens support populist leaders and policies in North Macedonia.
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