The Liberal Democratic Party (

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...

: Либерално-демократска Партија, ''Liberalno-demokratska Partija'') is a social-liberal

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

. The Liberal Democratic Party was launched in April 1997 as a merger between the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

and the Democratic Party. The first leader of the party was Petar Goshev from the Democrats, who was also the last president of the

League of Communists of Macedonia , logo = Emblem of the SKJ (Cyrillic).svg , colorcode = , leader = President of the League of Communists of Macedonia , predecessor = Regional Committee of the Communists in Macedonia , foundation = 1943 , dissolution = 20 April 1991 , ...

. When the Liberal Party was re-established in 1999, a significant portion of the former Liberal Party remained in LDP. Since 1994 the LDP has been a member of

Liberal International Liberal International (LI) is a worldwide organization of liberal political parties - a political international. It was founded in Oxford in 1947 and has become the pre-eminent network for liberal parties, aiming to strengthen liberalism aroun ...

. The party is also an affiliate member of the

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

. The party's president from 2006 until 2011 was Jovan Manasievski. In 2011, Andrej Žernovski was elected as the new leader of the party. He was in that position until 2015 when in the party's congress Goran Milevski was elected as president. The party's current leader is Monika Zajkova, elected in 2022.

Electoral results

In the 2002 parliamentary elections, the party won 12 out of 120 seats as part of the Together for Macedonia alliance, led by the

Social Democratic Union of Macedonia The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia ( mk, Социјалдемократски сојуз на Македонија – СДСМ, ''Socijaldemokratski Sojuz na Makedonija'' – SDSM, sq, Lidhja socialdemokrate e Maqedonisë – LSDM) is a ...

and the Liberal Democratic Party. After the 2002 elections it participated in the government together with the SDSM and the

Democratic Union for Integration The Democratic Union for Integration ( mk, Демократска унија за интеграција, ДУИ, Demokratska unija za integracija, DUI, al, Bashkimi Demokratik për Integrim, BDI) is the largest ethnic Albanian political party ...

. After the 2006 parliamentary elections, the Liberal Democratic Party did not remain in government. The party participated in the

2009 Macedonian presidential election Presidential elections were held in North Macedonia, Macedonia in 2009. The first round was held on 22 March, alongside 2009 Macedonian local elections, local elections. As no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a run-off round was held ...

without entering in coalition with any of the larger parties. The candidate for presidency in the election was Nano Ruzin, who garnered 40,042 votes which equaled 4.06% of the popular vote in the first round of the elections. In the 2011 parliamentary election, the Liberal Democratic Party lost all 4 of its seats, receiving 1.48% of the popular vote. The party was part of the coalition " Alliance for the Future" alongside

SDSM The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia ( mk, Социјалдемократски сојуз на Македонија – СДСМ, ''Socijaldemokratski Sojuz na Makedonija'' – SDSM, sq, Lidhja socialdemokrate e Maqedonisë – LSDM) is a ...

, VMRO-NP, NSDP,

United for Macedonia United for Macedonia ( mk, Обединети за Македонија, ''Obedineti za Makedonija'') is a political party in North Macedonia. It was founded by Ljube Boškoski, a former interior minister and former member of the conservative ...

and

Dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inaliena ...

. Following the 2013 local elections, the party's candidate for mayor, Andrej Žernovski, defeated the then mayor of the Centar Municipality, Vladimir Todorovik, taking a landslide victory in an election that lasted 3 electoral rounds. The opposition, led by SDSM, criticized the government and accused the government of bringing voters illegally from

Pustec Pustec ( sq, Pustec; mk, Пустец) formerly known as Liqenas (1973–2013), is a village in Pustec Municipality, Korçë County, eastern Albania. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Prespa, it is home to much of the Macedonian minorit ...

, a city in Albania. Further video material and strange names on the electoral lists revealed the information to be accurate. Nevertheless, the candidate of the opposition declared electoral victory following a very complicated and questionable election in the municipality. No answers were given by the current government in power in Macedonia,

VMRO-DPMNE Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity ( mk, Внатрешна македонска револуционерна организација – Демократска партија за ...

has rejected any accusations as false. The LDP became a member of the

on 2 December 2016. On the early parliament elections on 11 December 2016, the party was in coalition with

. The coalition won 440 000 and 49/120 MPs in the Macedonian assembly, with the LDP itself winning three seats.

References

External links

Liberal Democratic Party
Official site {{ELDR member parties Political parties established in 1997 Liberal International Liberal parties in North Macedonia Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party member parties