Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005

Nacionalen Evrosong 2005 was the national final organised by MRT that selected Macedonia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2005. The competition took place on 19 February 2005 at the Universal Hall in Skopje, hosted by Karolina Petkovska and Aneta Andonova and was broadcast on MTV 1, MTV Sat and online via the broadcaster's official Eurovision Song Contest website eurosong.com.mk.[3][4]

A sixteen-member committee each proposed eight artists for the competition and the six most nominated were presented to the public in a special show titled Eurosong Day in Macedonia, which took place on 7 November 2004 and was broadcast on MTV 1 and MTV Sat.[5][6] On 9 November 2004, MRT announced that Kaliopi had withdrawn from the artist selection.[7] Two artists qualified to the final by a 50/50 combination of public televoting which ran until 14 November 2004 and a jury panel consisting of seven individual members and an eighth aggregate 20-member press vote, which were announced on 14 November.[8] Over 1,500 votes were registered by the televote.[9]

The final took place on 19 February 2005 where each of the two finalists, Aleksandra Pileva and Martin Vučić, performed four candidate Eurovision songs: three selected from over 100 songs that MRT received through an open submission and one provided by the artists themselves for the competition.[10] The winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a combination of public televoting (1/3), votes cast by the venue audience (1/3) and a twelve-member jury panel (1/3) selected one song per finalist to advance to the second round. In the second round, the public, audience and jury vote selected "Ti si son" performed by Martin Vučić as the winner.[11] The jury panel consisted of Metodi Čepreganov (doctor), Avni Qahili (MTV 2), Diki Tavitjan (musician), Valentina Todoroska (Utrinski vesnik), Joško Boškovski (Radio Macedonia), Vlatko Plevneš (musician), Tanja Grkovska (MTV), Robert Sazdov (producer), Cvetanka Laskova (singer), Katerina Kocevska (actress), Beni Šakiri (musician) and Nikola Firiev (MTV). In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the competition featured guest performances by Biba Dodeva, Andrijana Janevska, Iskra Trpeva, Tamara Todevska and 2004 Macedonian Junior Eurovision representative Martina Siljanovska.[12]

The Macedonian national final sparked controversy due to the large discrepancy between the jury and public vote; Aleksandra Pileva won the televote in both rounds but lost out to Martin Vučić despite receiving six times more votes than him in the second round.[11] In addition, some of the audience members later admitted that they have been given free tickets to attend the show in order to vote for Vučić.[13] Martin Vučić and his father Dragan Vučić (also the co-composer of "Ti si son") were physically and verbally assaulted outside the venue by the supporters of Pileva, while Macedonian Prime Minister Vlado Bučkovski who also attended the show expressed concern over the way the points were awarded.[14][15]

Macedonian Eurovision Head of Delegation Ivan Mircevski later stated that he was at fault for determining the voting system and that he personally apologised to both artists for the scandal.[16] MRT released a statement on 25 February affirming Martin Vučić as the winner after no irregularities with the voting were found.[17]

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Macedonia and awarded by Macedonia in the semi-final and grand final of the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Croatia in the semi-final and to Albania in the final of the contest.