Confrontations in SDSM continue even after the election of Venko Filipce as new leader. Former Skopje Mayor Petre Silegov, seen as one of the main leaders of the Skopje wing of the party, publicly posted a screenshot showing that he was removed from one of the party’s chat groups by the Secretary General Mile Zecevic.

We are yet to see a “remove”, wrote Silegov, calling out the powerful former intelligence officer who ran SDSM along with former leader Dimitar Kovacevski.

The Skopje wing of the party took a beating in the leadership elections where the Zaev wing easily had its candidate – Filipce – elected as leader. Amid low turnout from party members, Filipce won about 9,000 votes against less than 3,000 for Despotovski.