VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski is perceived as the most religious politician in the country, as opposed to Dimitar Apasiev of Levica, who is thought to be the least religious, according to a poll by the Institute for Political Research – Skopje (IPIS) and website Religija.
The research, as it is pointed out, is financially supported by the foundation The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), within the project “Republic of North Macedonia as a multi-confessional society”.
A total of 56 percent of respondents rated Mickoski as “very and somewhat religious”, and 30.9 percent said so for Apasiev. It is emphasized that the religiosity of politicians is more perceived by respondents of opposite religious affiliation. Thus, there is a larger number of Muslims who believe that religiosity is a characteristic of Macedonian politicians, just as a larger number of Christians believe that religiosity is a characteristic of Albanian politicians.
The analysis of this research also shows that there is a relatively large discrepancy between Orthodox and Muslim respondents and a trend that among the Orthodox means a decrease in the perception of approval of sending political messages by religious leaders, while among Muslims this trend is reversed and thus increases the gap in perceptions regarding this issue.
The survey was conducted by telephone between July 20 and July 25, on a representative sample of 1,110 respondents.
