Former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski warned his SDSM party that its win in the presidential elections is nothing to be smug about.

Seeing the results, in most municipalities where Macedonians are a majority of the voters, VMRO-DPMNE won. The 370.000 votes for Siljanovska are an excellent result for VMRO-DPMNE. I believe that their most optimistic projections put their result at 350.000 and were thinking that Stevo Pendarovski has much more room to grow among the Albanian voters and those who abstainted in the first round. There is no room for euphoria in SDSM. The key for the party still being the favorite to win the next general elections is whether Zaev will make true on the promise he made (his operation broom). VMRO-DPMNE is definitely a competitive, strong party and will be a serious threat to the ruling coalition, Buckovski said.

The former Prime Minister added that a winning move for SDSM was to make a deal with DUI, after Albanian voters, with near-unanimous support for Pendarovski, swung the election and cancelled out Siljanovska’s winning margin among ethnic Macedonians.