Nikola Gruevski

Nikola Gruevski
Никола Груевски
6th Prime Minister of Macedonia
In office
27 August 2006 – 18 January 2016
President Branko Crvenkovski
Gjorge Ivanov
Preceded by Vlado Bučkovski
Succeeded by Emil Dimitriev
Leader of the Opposition
In office
31 May 2017 – 23 December 2017
President Gjorge Ivanov
Preceded by Zoran Zaev
Succeeded by Hristijan Mickoski
Minister of Finance
In office
27 December 1999 – 11 January 2002
Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski
Preceded by Boris Stojmenov
Succeeded by Petar Gosev
Personal details
Born (1970-08-31) 31 August 1970
Skopje, Yugoslavia
Political party VMRO-DPMNE
Spouse(s)
Suzana Arbutina
(m. 2001; div. 2005)

Borkica Gruevska
(m. 2007)
Children 2
Alma mater University of Bitola
University of Skopje

Nikola Gruevski (Macedonian: Никола Груевски [ˈnikɔɫa ˈɡruefski] ( listen); born 31 August 1970) is a Macedonian politician. He served as Prime Minister of Macedonia from 27 August 2006 to 18 January 2016, and led the VMRO-DPMNE party from May 2003 until December 2017. He was Minister of Finance in the VMRO-DPMNE government led by Ljubčo Georgievski until September 2002.

Under the Pržino Agreement mediated by the European Union, Gruevski agreed to resign and left his post on 18 January 2016.[1]

In May 2018, he was sentenced to two years in prison on corruption charges.[2]

Personal life

Born in Skopje in 1970, Gruevski was brought up in a family that was neither privileged nor poor. His father worked in furniture and design and his mother was a nurse. After his parents’ divorce, he was raised by his mother. At the age of four, however, she went to work in Libya, like thousands of other Yugoslav citizens, and took him with her.[3] After their return Gruevski completed primary and secondary education in Skopje. Having graduated from the Faculty of Economics at St. Clement of Ohrid University of Bitola in 1994 (where he dabbled in amateur theatre and boxing) he entered the nascent finance sector, and was the first person to trade on Skopje's stock exchange.[3] In 1996 he also acquired qualifications for the international capital market from a London Securities Institute.[4] On 12 December 2006, he obtained a master's degree from the Faculty of Economics at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje.[5] Gruevski founded the Brokerage Association of Macedonia in 1998 and made the first transaction on the Macedonian Stock Exchange.[6]

Gruevski divorced his first wife and married again in May 2007 to Borkica Gruevska with whom he has two daughters: Anastasija and Sofija.[7][8]

Gruevski's paternal grandparents stem from the Ottoman Macedonia village of Krushoradi, where his grandfather Nikola Grouios (1911–1940) was born. Until the official Greek annexation after the Second Balkan War in 1913, it was under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Exarchate.[9] The Greek administration later led assimilative anti-Bulgarian campaign, changing the names of the local villagers to the corresponding Greek names.[10][11][12] The village itself was renamed by the Greek authorities to Achlada in 1926.[13][14] Gruevski's grandfather fought in the Greco-Italian War, where he lost his life.[3] His name is mentioned on the war memorial in Achlada among the names of the locals who were killed during World War II. Years later, during the Greek Civil War, Gruevski's grandmother and father fled north to what was then Yugoslav Macedonia,[3] where they changed their family name to Gruevski in order to gain citizenship through assimilation, as was the Yugoslav policy at the time.[15]

Gruevski's maternal grandfather - Mihail D. Miyalkov was a pro-Bulgarian activist and a member of Bulgarian club founded in Stip in November 1942, when the area was annexed by Bulgaria.[16] His mother Nadezhda is also from Stip. She is the sister of the first Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Macedonia - Jordan Mijalkov. During the administration of Nikola Gruevski, his first cousin, Sašo Mijalkov was the director of the Administration for Security and Counterintelligence of the Republic of Macedonia.

Political career, 1999–present

Minister of Finance (1999–2002)

The government under Ljubčo Georgievski sold the Macedonian Telecom to Hungarian Matáv and the OKTA oil refinery to Hellenic Petroleum. Gruevski also implemented financial reforms, including the reform of the payment system and the value added tax of 18%, requiring fiscal receipts for all Macedonian businesses, which was a program designed to fight tax evasion.

Party leader (2003–2017)

Gruevski is the leader of the nationalist ruling party VMRO-DPMNE. After VMRO-DPMNE was defeated in the 2002 parliamentary election, there was a period of infighting within the party. Gruevski emerged as the pro-EU leader, and he was elected as leader of the party after Ljubčo Georgievski left the position. The former prime minister set up his own party (VMRO-People's Party), but VMRO-DPMNE retained most of the party's supporters.

Prime Minister (2006–2016)

Gruevski and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Washington, D.C., 16 February 2011

The VMRO-DPMNE won the July 2006 parliamentary election, and on 25 August 2006 he constituted the new government. His government had many new faces, mostly in their 30s, in key ministries and other positions. In the election Gruevski earned the distinction of becoming the first elected European head of government born in the 1970s.[17][18]

In June 2007, Gruevski attended a meeting in Tirana, Albania, along with President of the United States George W. Bush, Prime Minister of Albania Sali Berisha, and Prime Minister of Croatia Ivo Sanader.[19]

The coalition led by his party, VMRO-DPMNE, won the 1 June 2008 parliamentary election, their second electoral victory in a row, winning more than half of the seats in the parliament.[20] The polling was marred by a number of violent incidents and allegations of fraud in some ethnic Albanian dominated municipalities. Gruevski created a government with the ethnic Albanian political party Democratic Union for Integration.[21]

European People's Party Summit in Brussels in March 2014

The coalition led by his party, VMRO-DPMNE, won the 5 June 2011 parliamentary election, their third electoral victory in a row, winning 56 out of the 123 seats in the parliament. Objections of misuse of state resources, including the blackmail of over one hundred thousand public servants to act as agitators were neglected, and the elections were declared valid. Gruevski formed the new government, again in coalition with the Democratic Union for Integration.

On 6 January 2012, Gruevski opened the triumphal arch "Porta Macedonia" in Skopje as a monument to 20th anniversary of Macedonian independence, and admitted that he personally has been the instigator of the Skopje 2014 project.[22][23]

On 27 April 2014, VMRO-DPMNE won the parliamentary election, providing Gruevski another term as Prime Minister.

Wiretapping scandal and resignation

In May 2015, protests occurred in Skopje against the Gruevski and his government. Protests began following charges being brought up against Zoran Zaev, the opposition leader, who responded by alleging that Gruevski had 20,000 Macedonian officials and other figures wiretapped, and covered up the murder of a young man by a police officer in 2011. A major protest occurred on 5 May, seeing violent clashes between activists and police, with injuries on both sides. In the days afterward, the opposition claimed that more anti-government actions will occur, which they did later that month. Several ministers, including the interior minister, resigned during the protests. Gruevski initially refused to step down, saying on 16 May that "if I back down it would be a cowardly move ... I’ll face down the attacks.” However on 15 January 2016, Emil Dimitriev was nominated as prime minister of Macedonia and he assumed office on 18 January, following the arranged pre-electoral resignation of Gruevski from the position, as part of the Przino Agreement.

After departure from office

In July 2017, a Macedonian court ordered the seizure of the passports of Gruevski and four other officials of his party, including former interior minister Gordana Jankuloska and former transportation minister Mile Janakieski, in connection with the wiretapping case.[24]

In December 2017, Gruevski resigned as leader of the VMRO-DPMNE,[25] following the party's major defeat by the Social Democratic Union in local elections.[26]

Trial

In January 2017, the Macedonian Special Prosecutor's Office launched the 'Tank' investigation in which two individuals were accused for using their official position and authority in the period from February to October 2012 to complete an illegal public procurement of a Mercedes-Benz 600 worth €600,000 and 'fulfill the wishes' of Gruevski who was Prime Minister at the time.[27] On 23 May 2018, Gruevski was sentenced to two years in prison for unlawfully influencing government officials in a purchase of a luxury bulletproof car.[28][29][30][2]

Awards and recognition

Recognitions

Awards

  • Vienna Economic Forum award – for contribution to national and regional economic development (2011)[33]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.balkanews.org/index.php/2016/01/27/macedonia-premier-to-step-down-under-western-brokered-deal/
  2. 1 2 "Gruevski sentenced to 2 years in prison in 'Tank' case". BalkanEU.com. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 A profile of Gruevski, The Economist, 12 August 2011
  4. ↑ iBi Center. "NATO PA – PLENARY – Nikola Gruevski". Nato-pa.int. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  5. ↑ "уким". Ukim.edu.mk. 17 December 2008. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  6. ↑ "President of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia | Влада На Република Македонија". Vlada.mk. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  7. ↑ "Vest". Archived from the original on 19 August 2009. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  8. ↑ "Daily.mk - Вести". Daily.MK - Вести. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  9. ↑ "PDF pager". anemi.lib.uoc.gr. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  10. ↑ Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Author Victor Roudometof, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 0275976483, pp. 62-63.
  11. ↑ Ivo Banac, "The Macedoine" in "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics", pp. 307-328, Cornell University Press, 1984, retrieved on 8 September 2007. Macedonia was partitioned by the Treaty of Bucharest (1913), whereby over half of the land went to Greece (Aegean Macedonia) and most of the remainder to Serbia (Vardar Macedonia), leaving slightly more than one-tenth to Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia)...The immediate effect of the partition was the anti-Bulgar campaign in areas under Serbian and Greek rule. The Serbians expelled Exarchist churchmen and teachers and closed Bulgar schools and churches (affecting the standing of as many as 641 schools and 761 churches). Thousands of Macedonians left for Bulgaria, joining a still larger stream from devastated Aegean Macedonia, where the Greeks burned Kukush, the center of Bulgar politics and culture, as well as much of Serres and Drama. Bulgarian (including the Macedonian dialects) was prohibited, and its surreptitious use, whenever detected, was ridiculed or punished.
  12. ↑ For a detailed report on the atrocities of Greek Boulgarophagoi (Bulgarianeaters) in Aegean Macedonia, see Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars..
  13. ↑ "Πανδέκτης: Krousorati -- Achlada". pandektis.ekt.gr. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  14. ↑ "Dnevnik". Dnevnik. 22 February 1999. Archived from the original on 4 October 2010. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  15. ↑ "Yugoslavias National Minorities Under Communism". Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  16. ↑ Общограждански национален клуб "Благой Монев" - "Протокол и устав на Щипския общограждански национален клуб "Благой Монев", Щип, 1942 година.
  17. ↑ Who's your daddy? (accessed 24 December 2010)
  18. ↑ Deputy Prime Minister > Biography Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine. (accessed 24 December 2010)
  19. ↑ http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-2007-book1/pdf/PPP-2007-book1-doc-pg726.pdf
  20. ↑ "Macedonia". Parties and Elections in Europe. Archived from the original on 4 December 2008. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  21. ↑ "PM claims win in Macedonian poll", BBC News, Link accessed 01/06/08
  22. ↑ "Macedonia, Kazakhstan: Triumphal Arches to Celebrate 20 Years of Independence · Global Voices". 28 March 2012. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  23. ↑ "PM Gruevski: Yes, Skopje 2014 was my Idea". MINA. 7 January 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  24. ↑ "Macedonian Court Orders Seizure of Conservative Leaders' Passports in Wiretapping Case". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. July 4, 2017.
  25. ↑ Former Macedonian rightist PM resigns party leadership, Reuters (December 11, 2017).
  26. ↑ Macedonia's Gruevski Says He Will 'Soon' Step Down As Leader Of VMRO-DPMNE, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (December 2, 2017).
  27. ↑ "SPO launches new “Tank” case for Gruevski’s 600,000 euro “Mercedes”". Meta.mk. 24 January 2017.
  28. ↑ "Macedonian court sentences former PM Gruevski to 2 years". The Washington Post. 23 May 2018.
  29. ↑ "Macedonian court sentences former PM Gruevski to 2 years". ABC News. 23 May 2018.
  30. ↑ "Macedonian Court Sentences Former PM Gruevski to 2 Years". New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  31. ↑ "Gruevski receives highest award of Shtip, "St. Nicholas" - Meta.mk". meta.mk. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  32. ↑ http://www.bigorski.org.mk/index.php?content_type=sluzhbi_bdenija&action=details&record_id=1738
  33. ↑ "PM Gruevski recipient of Vienna Economic Forum award". Влада на Република Македонија. Retrieved 14 May 2017.

Further reading

  • Gruevski, Nikola and Vaknin, Sam Macedonian Economy on a Crossroads, Skopje, NIP Noval Literatura, 1998. ISBN 9989-610-01-0
  • Gruevski, Nikola, The Way Out
Political offices
Preceded by
Boris Stojmenov		 Minister of Finance
1999–2002		 Succeeded by
Petar Gosev
Preceded by
Vlado Bučkovski		 Prime Minister of Macedonia
2006–2016		 Succeeded by
Emil Dimitriev
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