Prime Minister Zoran Zaev tried to get away from the pledge to allow early general elections if his presidential candidate Stevo Pendarovski loses on May 5th.

Zaev announced early elections in autumn if Pendarovski loses, and Mickoski later said he will take him up on it. But, during the debate this evening, Zaev denied ever saying that.

I don’t remember saying that, Zaev said about his widely shared statement from ten days ago.

Instead, Zaev asked for guarantees from opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski that there will be no boycott of the second round of the presidential elections, but took a lot of prodding to eventually commit again to holding general elections if Pendarovski loses – which is one move that could drive the turnout above the required 40 percent. Instead, Zaev tried to get Mickoski to resign as head of the VMRO-DPMNE party if his candidate Gordana Siljanovska loses.

I will defeat you at the coming general elections, that is what will happen, Mickoski responded, before Zaev eventually acknowledged: “I will call for elections if we lose”, provided that the opposition asks for elections.