The left party SDSM lost the Capital Skopje and most major cities in the country. But the prime minister resigning Zoran Zaev refuses to organize anticipated legislation.
Le Monde with AFP
The Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev announced his resignation Sunday, October 31 after the bad results of his party, the SMS (left), in the municipal elections in this small landlocked country of the Balkans. “I am responsible for these results in elections. I resign from my prime minister,” Zoran Zaev said.
During this ballot, whose second round was held this Sunday, the SDSM lost the capital skopje and most major urban cities and centers of the country after having, in 2017, won more than half of the 80 municipalities of North Macedonia. “I brought freedom and democracy, and democracy implies taking up his responsibilities,” said Zaev again who also resigned from his President of the SDSM.
Parliament still has to confirm its resignation. Elected Prime Minister in 2017, he had ended ten of Nikola Gruevski’s reign and his right-wing party the Vmro-dpmne, shaken by an illegal scandal that seems to testify to creeping corruption.
Probing VMRO-DPMNE’s victory, its current leader Hristijan Mickoski felt that “the government has lost its legitimacy.” Mr. Mickoski expressed the hope that this “new reality would manifest itself within Parliament.” “However the best solution would be that this happens in anticipated parliamentary elections,” said Mickoski.
Outstanding European membership
Zoran Zaev is opposed to an anticipated vote and intends to ensure a majority in Parliament for a new Government of the SDSM and its allies. In 2018, Mr. Zaev concluded with Athens an agreement that resolved a conflict with Greece on the name of Macedonia, and planning to add the “North” qualification on behalf of the country to avoid confusion with the Greek province with the same name.
The conclusion of this agreement should in principle open the door to the country’s accession negotiations with the European Union. But northern Macedonia was subsequently encountered with the reluctance of France and Bulgaria, and still has not started these negotiations. Sofia, which threatens to block the EU membership negotiations of North Macedonia, and Skopje have a dispute on the origins of the Macedonian language. Sofia considers her a Bulgarian dialect.
Despite his victory to the 2010 legislative laws, the Government of Mr. Zaev, who has close majority, has not been spared by business, which probably explains the result of the municipal elections. The Government had committed to curb the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the national economy while progressing towards accession to the EU but without registering significant results in both files.