The average Skopje citizen isn’t an ideologue. He’s a surviving democrat, a person who votes the way he goes to work, not with faith, but with a sense of responsibility. He knows he’ll be disappointed, but refuses to become indifferent. In every vote, there’s irony, but also hope that the city might get better if at least someone takes it seriously.
Beneath Mount Vodno, which can’t be seen through the smog and poison, the city looks like a person bracing for another hard week. The neighbor across the street, smiling but distrustful, asks me:
“Are we voting for these ones again? They think we don’t see where we’re going!?”
I tell her: “We’ll go to the market, and take what they give us.”
There was more politics in that brief exchange than in all the televised debates combined. Skopje speaks through coffee and cigarettes, irony, and a stubborn faith that maybe, just maybe, this time will be different.
The average Skopje citizen isn’t an ideologue. He’s a surviving democrat, a person who votes the way he goes to work, not with faith, but with a sense of responsibility. He knows he’ll be disappointed, but refuses to become indifferent. In every vote, there’s irony, but also patient hope that the city might get better if at least someone takes it seriously.
The second round isn’t just a political race. It’s a psychological test: do we still have the nerves to believe, or are we just pretending to care?
The numbers from the first round are clear: Orce Gjorgjievski won 91,582 votes, Amar Mecinovic 30,659. Turnout of 46% once again confirmed Skopje’s habit of voting only when there’s drama. Around 81,000 votes from the eliminated candidates will now decide the outcome.
For Gjorgjievski, the path is shorter, he needs about 24,000 new votes; for Mecinovic, four times more.
One counts on organization, the other on enthusiasm. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. Here, people vote with mood, not with calculation.
Source: freepik.com
Orce Gjorgjievski sees order not as a habit, but as a duty. For him, politics is a craft, not a performance.
He doesn’t promise spectacles, he promises functionality: a bus that arrives on time, a street that doesn’t crumble, and a city service that doesn’t drain people’s nerves. His style is methodical, but beneath it, there’s a quiet morality, a belief that public duty is the simplest form of decency. In a time when everyone talks about visions, he talks about bills. Not because he lacks imagination, but because he knows a city is first judged by whether it works.
When he speaks, he’s not charismatic.
He looks more like a manager explaining a schedule than a leader firing up a crowd. But that’s exactly why he comes across as reliable. People trust him not because he excites them, but because he calms them.
Amar Mecinovic, on the other hand, approaches with a completely different temperament. He doesn’t see the city as a system but as a conscience trying to wake up. His speech carries excitement, moral tension, and a lot of force.
He’s managed to mobilize that segment of Skopje’s public that’s tired of managers and wants to hear words with meaning. His campaign looks less like a party rally and more like a lecture on ethics.
When he speaks, he doesn’t sell programs, he calls for alertness. But sometimes that sincerity sounds like a plea from someone who believes words alone can change reality, and Skopje has long known that a bike lane isn’t built with slogans.
He has intellectual passion, but also the naivety to think that conscience can replace a system. That’s where both the strength and the risk of his campaign lie.
His idealism isn’t theatrical, it’s human: anger turning into an attempt to create order. Yet in a city with complex habits and tired institutions, morality without mechanisms is like an engine without oil. His sincerity earns him sympathy, but it’s not enough to make the city move.
In the eastern parts of the city and southern neighborhoods, from Kisela Voda, through Aerodrom to Gazi Baba and Butel, people want functionality. They want a city that works, not one that complains.
For them, politics is a service activity, not a debate about meaning. A craftsman in front of a building with a “Končar” elevator told me: “Projects? First give us street cleaners!” In those few words, there’s an entire philosophy of pragmatism.
From the edges of Gjorče Petrov, through Karpoš and Centar to some streets in Čair, defiance reigns. There, the logic of conscience dominates.
“We’ve had enough of this kind of peace,” an architect in Leptokarija told me. “Stefanovski wrote it well.” That’s the voice of intellectual anger, people searching for meaning, not just comfort. And they’re right, but their sense of justice often collides with the madness of everyday life.
These two worlds are not irreconcilable. Gjorgjievski embodies the city’s responsible instinct, Mecinovic its critical conscience.
The first builds structure, the second keeps it awake. Without order, the city falls apart; without doubt, it falls asleep.
Skopje belongs to two kinds of people: those who want to fix it, and those who want to awaken it. Both are necessary. Thinking about all this urban tension, the choice seems simple in form but complex in substance. If there’s an outpouring of public anger against the system, Mecinovic will win.
If we want a simply functional city, Orce will stay. But most likely, we’ll get both revolt and calm, one after the other. In those three plain sentences lies the entire logic of Skopje.
The city is always torn between anger and hope, between the desire for order and the search for meaning.
It doesn’t vote for parties, but for states of mind. And maybe that’s exactly why, in every election cycle, Skopje looks as if it’s having a nervous breakdown, but also like a city that, no matter how much it argues with itself, still has a pulse.
