English
Orce Gjorgjievski, who is far and away the leading candidate in the mayoral race in Skopje, won the endorsement of Bashkim Bakiu – his opponent from the VLEN coalition, who fell out of the race. Bakiu and VLEN leader Izet Mexhiti called on their supporters to vote for Gjorgjievski in the second round on November 2nd.
In a press conference today, Gjorgjievski expressed his gratitude to all his supporters and reiterated that he is welcoming all citizens, regardless of their political affiliation.
We won the first half with an enormous margin, but the game is still not finished. The work needs to be done. We must affirm the victory and make it even bigger, and there is no stopping, the VMRO candidate said.
Gjorgjievski won over 91,000 votes, and his nearest rival Amar Mecinovic from the populist Levica party has just over 30,000 votes. Bakiu from VLEN got 27,898 votes, and in a huge upset for SDSM, the party’s candidate Kaja Sukova ranked fourth – with just 26,737 votes. Sukova is just a few hundreds votes ahead of the DUI candidate Skender Rexhepi and possible recounts could make SDSM the fifth ranked party in Skopje – a disastrous outcome for their standing.
SDSM and DUI have not yet declared whether they will openly support Mecinovic in the second round, even though VMRO has accused the three parties of secretly colluding and coordinating their activities. For DUI, openly supporting Levica is difficult due to the anti-Western orientation of the populist party. SDSM is in an even more difficult situation – Levica’s stated goal is to turn them into PASOK – a reference to the sudden collapse of the Greek social-democrats when faced with a populist left wing movement a decade ago.
