Even as he coronavirus infections are ran amok and the opposition boycotts the elections, electoral committees were formed today in Stip and Plasnica. The eastern Macedonian city and the rural municipality in the west are supposed to elect new mayors after the incumbents were named to the Government and the Parliament.

The Stip electoral committee said that it is preparing the documents for the members that will man the individual polling stations. SDSM candidate Sasko Nikolov is the clear candidate there as VMRO-DPMNE did not field a candidate for this “corona election”, citing the threat to public health. Municipal elections are scheduled to take place in less then a year from now anyway, and the opposition parties said there is no need to expose citizens to danger when interim mayors can be named for the short duration of time. Albanian opposition parties are also not challenging the seat in Plasnica, which is expected to be taken by the candidate of the ruling DUI party – who is the brother of the former Mayor.