North Macedonian parliamentary election

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 Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, resigned last night after the poor performance of his SDSM party in the second round of local elections, world agencies reported.

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.

He resigned due to the debacle in the second round of local elections.
"I take responsibility for the results of these elections and resign from the Prime Minister and the President of the SDSM," SDSM leader Zoran Zaev said tonight.

North Macedonia's main opposition VMRO DPMNE party declared victory over the centre-left government on Sunday night after polls closed in the local elections, which would mark a striking political comeback after three election defeats to the ruling Social Democrats.

Local elections will be held today in the neighboring Republic of North Macedonia, a BGNES reported.

1,824,864 people have the right to vote. 301 candidates are running for mayor and 10,600 for municipal councilors. Twelve candidates are running for mayor of the capital, Skopje. The second round of elections will take place on October 31.

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.

Two days before it was scheduled to start, North Macedonia's governing and opposition parties have agreed to postpone the long-awaited census for five months so that census takers and the wider population can get vaccinated first.

Several smaller parliamentary parties from all sides of the political spectrum in North Macedonia, supported by the main ruling Social Democrats, on Friday filed a fresh draft to change the election system and encourage more political diversity.