GROM party leader Stevce Jakimovski declared victory in the race in Skopje’s Karpos district against SDSM candidate Dusko Veskovski.

Jakimovski, is a former top SDSM official but broke with the party to run as Mayor of Karpos and joined in with VMRO-DPMNE during his two terms in office. He faced persecution by SDSM after Zaev’s power-grab in 2017 but managed to keep his support in Karpos, which SDSM hoped will be one of their strongest performing municipalities in the local elections.

A three way race devleoped between Jakimovski, Veskovski and the VMRO-DPMNE candidate Oliver Zafirovski, who dropped out after the first round. This focused the VMRO votes toward Jakimovski, who also likely got some support from the Levica party as well, to deny SDSM a key municipality. This leaves SDSM with only the prospect of winning in Centar – all other municipalities in Skopje that were in play for the party went for VMRO.