President of the Republic of Macedonia.
Gjorge Ivanov (born 2 May, 1960) is the President of the Republic of Macedonia.
Born in Valandovo, Ivanov finished primary and secondary school in his hometown. Until 1990 he was an activist in the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia. He is married and has two children. His permanent residence is in the Macedonian capital Skopje.
On 25 January 2009, the strongest party in the Macedonian parliament, conservative VMRO-DPMNE, appointed Ivanov as the party's presidential candidate for the 2009 Macedonian presidential election. 1,016 party delegates voted for his candidacy at the party's convention.
Although he was proposed as a candidate by the governing party VMRO-DPMNE, he is not a member of the party.[3] Polls from February 2009 saw Ivanov as the leading presidential candidate with the support of 27% of the consulted persons, the second candidate having the support of 13%.
During his campaign, Ivanov announced that if he is going to be elected president, he would "insist on a meeting between the President of the Republic of Macedonia and the President of the Republic of Greece" and that one of his highest priorities is the resolution of the country's long-running name dispute with Greece.
In the first round of the 2009 Macedonian presidential election 343,374 (35.06%) citizens of the Republic of Macedonia voted for Ivanov, the second being the candidate of the Social Democrats, Ljubomir Frčkoski, with 20.45% of the votes.
Ivanov won the second round of the presidential election with 437,455 votes; opposition candidate Ljubomir Frckoski got 252,195 votes.
One day after the election, Ivanov reaffirmed his intention for a meeting to be realized between him and the president of Greece, Karolos Papoulias. He added that he will officialize his invitation just after taking office.
