English
Former President Stevo Pendarovski joined in the criticism of SDSM party leader Venko Filipce, who is facing a growing rebellion in the party. In an interview, Pendarovski said that SDSM faces further drop in its support and even marginalization on the political scene.
There is a paradox – even though the ruling VMRO-DPMNE coalition lost some of its traditional support, SDSM is unable to capitalize on that and to channel the pro-opposition sentiment among the voters. And when you can’t succeed in doing this, the recipe is clear – you either change the political strategy and the approach toward the voters, or you bring in new people who will know how to reach out to other segments of voters, said Pendarovski.
In his clear rebuke of Filipce, Pendarovski said that the current trend of declining support for SDSM could continue and lead to even worse results at the next round of elections. “There is a real danger that the party moves toward disappearance or becomes a statistical margin of error”, said Pendarovski.
Filipce was asked about this at a press conference today and he tried to claim that Pendarovski’s positions were taken out of context and are being abused, insisting that Pendraovski supports his leadership of SDSM. Filipce is currently facing a growing faction based around the former Mayor of Skopje Petre Silegov, who he removed from the party membership. He also lost the support of one of the most watched media outlets that were supporting his party – Infomax – which is seen as siding with Silegov.