Zoran ZAev’s handpicked successor as SDSM party leader, Dimitar Kovacevski, is dominating in today’s election, as was predicted. But his two opponents, Jovan Despotovski and Frosina Remenski, are getting more than just symbolic numbers of votes.

According to early reports, with a little less than half the votes counted, Kovacevski won just under 15,000 votes, while Remenski and Despotovski have about 1,000 votes each. A total of 40,220 SDSM party members cast their votes in the election today, that was sparked by Zaev’s decision to leave the helm of the party after his serious defeat in the local elections.

Zaev endorsed the little known Deputy Finance Minister and former telecom executive Kovacevski as the next leader and he was expected to coast to victory. The vote tally for Despotovski is expected to measure the power of the Sekerinska wing of the party.
After the election, Zaev hopes to have Kovacevski installed as the next Prime Minister, but this will depend on his ability to keep together the fractious coalition in the face of energy collapse, spiking inflation, major corruption scandals, the fallout from the Besa bus disaster and the Tetovo hospital disaster, and his failure to secure the opening of EU accession talks.