North Macedonia Coalition Parties Urge Zaev to Reconsider Resignation

The parliamentary majority behind the Social Democrat-led government is small but remains firm, all the government's partner parties insisted on Monday after meeting Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who has announced his resignation following the defeat of his party at Sunday's local elections.

The parties said they have pleaded with Zaev, who also said on Sunday that he will resign as the Social Democrats' leader, to reconsider his decision and stay.

"The participants at the meeting concluded together that the country does not need early general elections because they would only plunge the country into a political, economic, social and security crisis, and would also stall the European integration processes," the parties in the governing coalition said in a joint press release after meeting at the government headquarters in Skopje.

Artan Grubi, the government's first vice-president, from the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, told media that "all the partners in the government were absolutely against Zaev's resignation, because we think it was a rushed decision… He should continue leading the government and carry out the policies, because a stable and predictable government is what the citizens are expecting."

Grubi insisted that Zaev's resignation was "unnecessary" after his party's defeat at the local elections, recalling that he and his alliance won the early parliamentary elections just over a year ago, in July 2020, and have three more years' obligation to lead the country towards Euro-Atlantic integration.

Zaev's resignation late on Sunday came as a surprise to his government partners. He said that he was taking the responsibility for the local election defeat and that by stepping down, he wanted to set a...