Macedonia's ruling party the VMRO-DPMNE has chosen university professor Georgi Ivanov as its candidate in the country's March 22 2009 elections for a successor to outgoing president Branko Crvenkovski.

VMRO-DPMNE (The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity), a centre-right formation that describes itself as a Christian Democrat party, is headed by prime minister Nikola Gruevski, who led the party to its latest parliamentary election victory in June 2008 with a platform including a hard line against Greece in the "name dispute" between Athens and Skopje over the use of the name Macedonia.

Gruevski and Crvenkovski have been political arch-rivals and have advocated different styles of approach in the name dispute.

From Skopje, Macedonian news agencies reported on January 25 2009 that Ivanov told delegates to the VMRO-DPMNE convention: "Macedonia has power because it has deep roots. Somebody wants to uproot our roots or to tell us that our roots are shallow. Macedonia should really be proud of its heritage, but it must be in the function of the future. Our future is not easy at all".

"I can see that something is changing in this country. This indicates that hope, faith, and optimism are entering the arena. Thus, we will need harmony and unification in the times that are coming, as well as a president who will unite us," Ivanov said.

The opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) was expected to announce its candidate on January 26. Three professors have been named in Macedonian media reports as candidates - Lyubomir Frckovski, Denko Maleseki and Venko Andonovski.

Earlier in January, a career diplomat and former president of the UN General Assembly, Srdjan Kerim, was named as the possible SDSM candidate but he said that he would not be standing and said that he had not been consulted about the nomination.

Current opinion polls indicate that the VMRO-DPMNE has a decisive lead over the SDSM.

The post of president of Macedonia is largely ceremonial although the president is nominally commander-in-chief of the armed forces and heads the state security council. The presidential term of office is five years and there is a two-term limit.

Macedonia's parliament has amended the minimum voter turnout required for a presidential election to be valid, reducing the figure to 40 per cent.

Last year's parliamentary elections were marred by violence centred around ethnic Albanian areas.