What comes next after the referendum

On Sunday, voters in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are expected to endorse the agreement signed with Greece last June. Although participation in the referendum might come to less than half of the registered voters, the government of Zoran Zaev will press ahead with the necessary constitutional amendment mandated by the agreement. He will be helped by the disarray of the nationalist opposition and, to some degree, by the lobbying of the great Western powers, mainly the United States and Germany.

Securing the two-thirds majority in Parliament needed for amending the constitution requires some votes from VMRO-DPMNE, the right-wing nationalist opposition that governed between 2006 and 2017. Rumor has it that a deal is in the making, whereby voting with the government will secure amnesty from criminal prosecution for the corruption and abuse of power by VMRO...

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