In less than a year, the number of SDSM party members who registered to vote for a new leader dropped by 17,000.

SDSM elected Zoran Zaev as leader in March, in its first even mass vote in which all party members were eligible. This election had 68,999 registered voters and about 62,000 of them voted.

But after Zaev lost the October local elections to VMRO-DPMNE, he resigned as leader, and tomorrow the party now has a choice between three candidates – Dimitar Kovacevski, Jovan Despotovski and Frosina Remenski. But this time, reflecting the collapse of the SDSM vote between the 2020 general elections and the 2021 local elections, only 51,228 members registered to vote. This does not mean that all 17,000 members dropped out of the party, but it indicates that the interest to get involved with SDSM is in steep decline.