Newly appointed SDSM party leader Dimitar Kovacevski made a clean sweep of party officials yesterday, removing numerous Zaev appointees and adding people from the Branko Crvenkovski led wing of the party, which broke with Zaev over the past year. Kovacevski is now hoping to receive the mandate to form the next Government from President Pendarovski and to try to keep together the fragile SDSM led coalition in Parliament.
– It’s a tremendous honor and responsibility to be named the choice of the SDSM Central Board for the next Prime Minister. I am prepared to work with dedication to prove your trust, said the little known former telecom executive who was elevated to leadership position by Zaev, from the obscure post of Deputy Finance Minister.
The evening meeting of the Central Board did not go well for the Zaev loyalists. Secretary General Ljupco Nikolovski was dismissed and replaced with former secret police chief Mile Zecevic. Oliver Spasovski and Venko Filipce resigned as Vice Presidents of the party, as did Mila Carovska. Only Zaev’s “Mini-Me”, the Mayor of Strumica Kostadin Kostadinov, remained as member of the Executive Board of the party.
A notable development is the return of officials from the Crvenkovski era. Crvenkovski’s own “Mini-Me”, Igor Ivanovski – Shema, was named head of the newly founded Council for creation and implementation of policies. Doctor Andrej Petrov was named to the Executive Board, despite protests from some party members that he sided with his employer, businessman Jordan Orce Kamcev, in his protracted battle against Zaev during the major Racket scandal.
In other developments, tax authority chief Sanja Lukarevska remained as Deputy Leader of the party – a position she took over after the withdrawal of Radmila Sekerinska in March. The former Mayor of Karpos Stefan Bogoev, who was implicated in the Racket scandal, is among the new Vice Presidents of the party. The others are the Mayor of Valandovo Pero Kostadinovski, Bitola member of Parliament Bisera Kostadinovska – Stojcevska and Fatmir Bytiqi, the only VP from the Zaev era who kept his position. Former Mayor of Skopje Petre Silegov, whose loss in the October local elections prompted Zaev’s resignation as party leader and Prime Minister, will be part of the Executive Board. Bojan Maricic will remain international secretary of the party, while Vangel Andreski will be the new organization secretary.
A major question is what role will Zaev continue to play in the party. Soon he will have no official position in the party or in the Government, and many of his people have been purged from the party leadership. Some, like the outgoing Transportation Minister Blagoj Bocvarski, apparently tried to retain some position in the party leadership, but was denied. Zaev shepherded Kovacevski in the past several weeks, inviting him to meetings with other party leaders from the shaky coaliiton and to the Open Balkan summit, where Kovacevski was rudely mocked by the leaders of Serbia and Albania.
Kovacevski did not reveal much about his intentions and gave mostly bland, robotic statements. At one point, he protested before the party delegates that he was “left alone, to fend for himself” after he faced criticism from the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party and nobody from SDSM came to his defense. He announced that he will continue the policies Zaev put in place – including the negotiations with Bulgaria which demands major concessions from Macedonia in the area of national identity and history before it will grant the opening of EU accession talks.
In another line of appeasement policies initiated by Zaev – toward the ethnic Albanian parties which was prompted by the fact that SDSM consistently loses to VMRO-DPMNE among the ethnic Macedonian voters – SDSM was already forced to make major concessions to DUI and now the Alternative party. Depending on how the last minute talks go, Kovacevski is on the verge of proposing the first Government that will not include a majority of ethnic Macedonians. The concessions given to Albanian parties have increased the appetites of SDSM’s other smaller coalition partners, and of the various factions within the party, and it is unclear how long this process can last.
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