Democratic Union for Integration

As the North Macedonian parliamentary commission starts work this week on drafting important but controversial change designed to satisfy neighbouring Bulgaria, opposition parties have cried foul, insisting that the experts nominated in it lack credibility, as they are close to the ruling parties.

Over two decades, Ali Ahmeti's Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, has gone from marginal political player to indispensable factor in government.

This was announced by the spokesperson of SDSM Bogdana Kuzevska and specified that the procedure for election of a new chairman of SDSM starts immediately. This will happen on December 12. Candidates for Zaev's post have 7 days to run. The leader of SDSM is elected by direct vote of all members of SDSM.

As the political fight to form a new majority escalates ahead of a no-confidence vote, due on Thursday, each MP in North Macedonia's various ethnic Albanian parties feels a kingmaker.

North Macedonia's main opposition VMRO DPMNE party on Monday filed a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, sticking to its promise to do so unless Zaev resigned by the 2.30pm ultimatum it gave him.

The MP and VMRO DPMNE vice-president Aleksandar Nikolovski confirmed this at a press conference in Skopje.

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.

Three possible options loom over North Macedonia's immediate political future after Prime Minister Zoran Zaev resigned on Sunday - the existing parliament majority led by the Social Democrats remaining in power with a new PM, a brand new opposition-led majority, or snap general elections.

On the other hand, the independent candidate for the mayor of Skopje, Danela Arsovska, declared victory, and the leading Macedonian opposition party VMRO-DPMNE calls for early parliamentary elections.

The forthcoming local elections on October 17 will again be dominated by male mayoral candidates, official data on candidacies that was recently published by the State Electoral Commission reveals.

Out of a total of 298 candidates who will be competing for mayoral seats in the country's 81 municipalities, only 26, or less than nine per cent, are women, the data shows.

Monday's agreement between Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, the leader of the ruling Social Democrats, and the opposition VMRO DPMNE party leader, Hristijan Mickoski, to postpone the nationwide census for six months from April to September due to the COVID-19 crisis has angered members of the ruling coalition as well as opposition parties.