Macedonia Opposition Party Backs Leader After Defeat

At a post-election congress on Sunday in Skopje, party delegates reconfirmed Zaev’s leadership position after a 12-hour-long debate.

In the vote of confidence, 413 party delegates supported Zaev while 146 voted against him, with 105 abstentions.

“The confidence I won is greater than that they gave me one year ago when I was elected as party president. This is a great honour and responsibility,” Zaev told Deutsche Welle after the vote.

Zaev came to the helm of the SDSM 11 months ago by winning 395 votes. 

After gaining the backing to continue leading the party, he said that despite different opinions  at the congress about his leadership, it was much more importaint that his party united over the its policies and thus emerged stronger and more unified.
 
The delegates unanimously supported the party’s stance in not recognizing the April general and presidential elections and not taking up the seats that it won in parliament.

The party accuses the government of Nikola Gruevski, who has been in power since 2006, of electoral fraud, and is demanding a caretaker government to stage free elections.

“The SDSM is in a specific moment of its existence and this strong support is an additional encouragement to persist with our decisions… until we reach our final goal – for Macedonia to be ready to hold free, fair and democratic elections and for the rule of law,” Zaev said.

The congress came just few days after the former long-standing party leader, Branko Crvenkovski, caused a stir in the SDSM's ranks, publically urging former opposition presidential runner Stevo Pendarovski to take the party leadership from Zaev.

In his reply, Pendarovski said he wished to distance himself from...