Boris Trajkovsky

Boris Trajkovski (in Macedonian, Борис Трајковски; Monospitovo, R. S. Macedonia, June 25, 1956 - Berkovići, Bosnia and Herzegovina, February 26, 2004) was a Macedonian lawyer and politician. He served as the President of North Macedonia from 1999 until his death in 2004.

Biography

Boris comes from a religious Methodist family from the township of Strumica. After graduating in Law from the Santos Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje in 1980, he worked as a legal adviser in the commercial field. At the same time he was able to travel to study theology in the United States and upon his return became a secular preacher for the United Methodist Church.

When North Macedonia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Trajkovski joined the nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE and was part of the international relations department. For a time he combined his militancy with a job as a legal adviser at the construction company Sloboda.In 1997 he took his first public position as chief of staff to the governor of Kisela Voda, belonging to Skopje.

With the electoral triumph of the VMRO-DPMNE in the parliamentary elections of 1998, Trajkovski was appointed deputy minister of Foreign Affairs at the head of a coalition government. Considered a figure close to the Western bloc due to his training in the US, in his brief tenure he promoted a rapprochement with the European Union and had to deal with the massive arrival of Kosovar Albanian refugees from the Kosovo war. His work at the front of the coordination of humanitarian aid gave him public projection, which is why the Macedonian nationalists named him a candidate for the 1999 presidential elections. Although Trajkovski lost in the first round against the socialist Tito Petkovski, the concentration of votes in his favor allowed him to surpass him in the second round with 52% of the votes.

Trajkovski's presidential term was marked by tensions between the Macedonian and Albanian communities, the most serious event of which was the 2001 armed conflict in the northwest of the country. The president asked the international community for help and ended up promoting a summit, mediated by NATO, which allowed the conflict to be resolved through a peace agreement that integrated the Albanian minority through power distributions. In addition, it managed to get NATO to supervise the disarmament of the Albanian guerrillas. The resolution of this conflict, which threatened to upset the recent stability of the Balkans, made Trajkovski perceived as a conciliatory figure among the international community.

Death

Boris Trajkovski died on February 26, 2004, at the age of 47, in a plane crash while en route to a conference in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thirty kilometers from the final destination, traffic control had lost the signal of the presidential plane, a Beechcraft Super King Air turboprop, as it flew over southern Herzegovina in dense fog. The wreckage of the aircraft was found in the highlands of Rotimlje, fifteen kilometers from Mostar, with no survivors among the seven passengers and the two pilots on board. The official investigation determined as the cause of the accident a controlled flight into the terrain due to fog, which is why the pilot had descended below the normal approach, as well as a poorly designed instrument approach.

The Macedonian government organized a state funeral on the streets of Skopje to honor Trajkovski's memory. The President of the Macedonian Assembly, Ljupčo Jordanovski, took over the country's leadership until early elections were held in April 2004, in which Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski was elected.