SDSM party Vice President Sanja Lukarevska assured party supporters in Krusevo that SDSM will win in the coming municipal elections. The party currently holds nearly all non-Albanian majority municipalities, as it did a full sweep in the 2017 elections, on the back of its power-grab earlier that year.

We have the best program and the best candidates. Meanwhile, our political opponents (VMRO-DPMNE) are lost. They have only nominated one candidate and are preparing for a new defeat, Lukarevska said.

During the campaign stop in the historic mountainous city, Lukarevska made a rare foray into patriotic themes, as she evoked the days of Goce Delcev, Pitu Guli and Jane Sandanski. Lukarevska tried to link the VMRO struggle for an independent Macedonian state with the concessions SDSM made with Macedonian history and national identity.

We became the 30th NATO member state, and we sit on the same table with our friends and allies, where we speak the Macedonian language and we will enter the EU as Macedonians who speak in Macedonian. The Macedonian language, the Macedonian identity, are firmly secured, Lukarevska claimed.