North Macedonia president’s website ditches country’s constitutional name
The official website of the president of North Macedonia has removed references to the constitutional name of the country from its home page and replaced it with the abbreviation “MK” or simply “Macedonia.”
The move follows the recent election President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, who caused a diplomatic row with Greece after referring to her country as “Macedonia” during her inauguration, in violation of the Prespa agreement, signed in 2018 between the two countries that resolved a long-standing disagreement over the state’s name.
As previous snapshots of the website show, up to at least May 15 the site had a link labeled “North Macedonia” on its header, which has now been replaced with “MK.”
However, that link leads to a page on the site with the title “Republic of North Macedonia.”
Further down on the main page, a link superimposed on a photograph of the country’s flag being hoisted by soldiers has been renamed “Macedonia” in place of “North Macedonia.”
Moreover, all references to “North Macedonia” have been removed from the links in the footer of the webpage.
Furthermore, all pages on the site that mention the current head of state refer to her simply as “president,” without any geographical indicator.
In addition, while the older presidential site also contained versions in the Albanian (which is spoken by about a quarter of the population) and English languages, the revamped site is now only available in the country’s majority Macedonian language.
On her X profile, Siljanovska-Davkova refers to herself as “President of Macedonia, wife, mother, professor, activist, expert, vegetarian, rocker.”
