Political analyst Saso Klekovski warned about a curious phenomenon, where the SDSM coalition with BESA may not deliver the desired Albanian votes.

SDSM is hoping that it will come out as the biggest Albanian party, even as it is likely to lose the ethnic Macedonian vote to VMRO. SDSM leader Zoran Zaev trained his fire on DUI leader Ali Ahmeti, and forged a coalition with the small Albanian BESA party, which got some key positions on the joint list in the 6th district and in other districts with sizable Albanian populations.

SDSM planned to make up its losing margin in the 3rd district with votes in the 6th district and then reduce the fight to the more even 1st and 2nd districts in Skopje. But the plan is wrong. My analysis indicates that BESA will not deliver the votes for SDSM because their voters will turn to the Alternative for Albanians and DUI, Klekovski said.

With winning seats on the list already guaranteed to the BESA candidates even if only SDSM’s ethnic Macedonian supporters turn out, this is a potentially strong demotivating factor for ethnic Albanian voters to vote for the joint list. BESA leader Bilal Kasami said that he will form a separate group in Parliament with the seats BESA wins, and that he may not support SDSM in future coalition making.