According to the Kurir news site, Zoran Zaev is preparing to use the promised purge of his Government to tackle his deputy and Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska. The news site reports that Zaev is exploring the idea to have Sekerinska focus on party matters, but relinquish her executive office.
Sekerinska is the unofficial leader of the Skopje, or urban wing of the party, built around established officials with ties to the Communist era, as opposed to Zaev’s far more rural, nouveau riche faction. Both party wings, as well as the third – Albanian wing led by Muhamed Zekiri – are quietly re-accommodating after the presidential elections, which saw SDSM suffer a significant drop in support and had the party reduced to relying to its minor ethnic coalition partners, as well as virtually all Albanian parties, to beat the VMRO-DPMNE candidate. SDSM ran Stevo Pendarovski and passed on Oliver Spasovski, meaning that the Skopje wing was rewarded with the presidency, but it also underperformed badly.
Two other top SDSM officials could face the sack, according to Kurir. The name of another Deputy Prime Minister Koco Angusev sticks out after an extensive track record of corruption was established. Angusev, along with Zaev, but also Skopje wing representative in the Government Damjan Mancevski, face anti-corruption investigations. Angusev’s list is particularly long and reaches into other countries, after the Greek public demanded an inquiry in the sale of one of his companies to the Greek DEI.
And lastly, following the humiliating defeat in Skopje, city Mayor Petre Silegov is under scrutiny. He is not part of the Government but Zaev can have him resign if he determines that Silegov’s lack of work, especially after the hyper-active terms of his VMRO predecessor Koco Trajanovski, cost the party a lot of its support in the capital.
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