Elections in North Macedonia

Dimitar Kovacevski, who is the current deputy Finance Minister in Zoran Zaev's government, won more than 37,000 of just over 44,000 votes in internal Social Democratic Party leadership elections on Sunday, leaving the other two candidates, Frosina Remenski and Jovan Despotovski, far behind.

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.

North Macedonia's Social Democratic PM Zoran Zaev late Tuesday postponed his announced resignation indefinitely, to try to sustain the current fragile majority in parliament and get the country out of its political crisis.

A decision was made today to postpone both resignations. We neither debated nor decided on them. When I resigned on 31 October, I said that I would help maintain the parliamentary majority and work to increase it if possible. Such is the responsibility to the state and the people. It makes perfect sense to work on this process.

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.

Opposition leader Hirstijan Mickoski's right-wing VMRO DPMNE party, their Albanian coalition partners Alliance for Albanians and Alternative, alongside the small opposition Levica party, and the ethnic Albanian BESA party, who has just defected from the current government ranks, came together to form a new majority in North Macedonia's parliament.

Not only did political newcomer Danela Arsovska win an election for Skopje mayor. Her victory helped brought down the prime minister too. What will the opposition VMRO-DPMNE want in return for its support?

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.

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.

VMRO-DPMNE is the absolute winner of yesterday's local elections in the Republic of North Macedonia, according to the latest data announced tonight on the website of the State Election Commission, Macedonian media reported.