SKOPJE, Macedonia - Kiro Gligorov, the first democratically elected president of Macedonia, who shepherded his nation through a bloodless secession from the former Yugoslavia and narrowly survived an assassination attempt, has died. He was 94.
The head of Mr. Gligorov’s office, Zivko Kondev, said yesterday that the former president died in his sleep at his home in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, on Sunday evening. The exact cause of death was not immediately clear.
Mr. Gligorov had been in good spirits on New Year’s Eve, said Kondev, adding he had visited the former president for a glass of champagne to see in the new year.
The current Macedonian president, Gjorge Ivanov, received the news of Mr. Gligorov’s death “with regret,’’ his office said. Ivanov sent a telegram of condolences to the former president’s family saying his tenure as the nation’s leader saw it evolve into a “stable and prosperous country.’’
Mr. Gligorov became president of Macedonia in January 1991, when it was still a Yugoslav republic. He led his countrymen through a referendum in which they voted for independence, and the territory of 2.1 million people became the only republic to secede from Yugoslavia without a war.
Mr. Gligorov “proved how someone should lead the country and therefore undoubtedly has a historic role in recent Macedonian history,’’ said former Parliament speaker Stojan Andov, who was also an aide to the former president.
Severely injured in an assassination attempt in October 1995, Mr. Gligorov emerged from a roughly four-month hospital stay with deep facial scars. The bomb that targeted his car as he headed to work in the capital, Skopje, cost him an eye and killed his driver and a bystander.
No suspects were ever arrested, and the investigation into the attempted assassination has made little headway in the intervening years.
Mr. Gligorov served two consecutive presidential terms, leading the nation from January 1991 to November 1999.
As Yugoslavia teetered on the brink of what would become a series of calamitous wars, he joined with the late Bosnian president, Alija Izetbegovic, to put forward a plan for a loose federation that would keep the country’s republics from splitting. But the nationalist fervor whipped up by late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was too great, and the plan never came to fruition.
Macedonia managed to avoid the fate of the other Yugoslav republics by declaring independence without the breakout of conflict. But it was not all smooth for Mr. Gligorov.
The early days of his presidency were overshadowed by a bitter dispute with southern neighbor Greece over the newly independent nation’s name - a dispute that continues to this day.
Athens objected to the use of the name Macedonia, saying it implied territorial ambitions on its own northern province of the same name. It also objected to a symbol on the new country’s flag and to articles of the Macedonian constitution that Greece believed implied territorial claims.
Greece imposed a crippling 19-month embargo on its northern neighbor, hammering the new country’s economy. In 1995, the Macedonian government signed an accord with Athens agreeing to remove the symbol from its flag and revising some articles of the constitution, but talks on the country’s name have made little progress. In official bodies such as the United Nations, the country is known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Mr. Gligorov also faced domestic unrest, with the republic’s large ethnic Albanian minority pressing for greater cultural and political autonomy.
The demands eventually boiled over into armed conflict about two years after Mr. Gligorov’s second term was over, with ethnic Albanian rebels battling government troops for about six months in 2001. The two sides eventually signed an internationally brokered peace accord under which minorities were guaranteed greater rights, and NATO peacekeepers were sent to the country.
Mr. Gligorov leaves two daughters and a son. His wife, Nada, died in 2009.