DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti said that it is possible he will form a coalition with Zoran Zaev’s SDSM party for the October municipal elections.

I don’t know, we need to see where our interests lie and where the interests of the citizens are. I think that our coalition with SDSM has been functioning well, in the past four years. Yes, it is worth considering a possible coalition. But we will have our lists of council members, Ahmeti said.

SDSM and DUI had a similar arrangement for the 2017 municipal elections, where SDSM used the levers of power to sweep all main cities across Macedonia.

This could provoke a similar coalition between VMRO-DPMNE and the Albanian opposition parties – AA and Alternative. The arrangement could include separate lists for municipal council members but deals for mutual support in the second round of the mayoral elections – where Macedonian parties need Albanian support to win in Skopje and Kumanovo, while Albanian parties need Macedonian support for majority Albanian cities like Tetovo and Gostivar.