SDSM president Dimitar Kovacevski announced that the party will do a full accounting of its election campaign after the general elections on May 8th, and asked the voters to deliver a strong SDSM group in Parliament. Both statements, coming after he was asked whether he sees accountability in his own actions for the dismal showing in the first round of presidential elections, indicate that the party is aware it will lose the elections. Kovacevski practically asked that the party is allowed to be a strong check on the future VMRO-DPMNE led Government.

We offer our hand ot all the citizens, to the SDSM voters, so that the party is represented in Parliament at a level that will influence the continuing of reforms and progressive decisions that need to be taken in the coming period, said Kovacevski during an interview with Sitel TV.

On the growing calls for accountability for the 2:1 margin of defeat his candidate Stevo Pendarovski suffered in the first round of the presidential elections, Kovacevski said that after the decisive vote on May 8th, the party will do a post-mortem of its results. As initial findings, he blamed the spiking inflation for the negative grade the citizens gave his party, as well as excesses of “some DUI party officials”. This criticism is mainly aimed against Artan Grubi, and Kovacevski praised other DUI ministers, but even in the criticism of Grubi, he did not discuss his reported corruption, but his childish pranks such as playing basketball in his office. Kovacevski also condemned the DUI rally in downtown Skopje, where party leader Ali Ahmeti threatened VMRO leader Hristijan Mickoski and led the crowd in chants of UCK – the name of his paramilitary group.