VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski says that he expects the turnout requirement of 40 percent to be reached in the second round of the presidential elections, and that the opposition candidate Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova will win.

Professor Siljanovska will be the next President of the Republic of Macedonia. I expect that the turnout requirement will be met. In the first round we showed that VMRO-DPMNE is strong and consolidated. We won in 47 municipalities, we won 42.5 percent of the first round votes, Mickoski said.

He dismissed the promise of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev that he will purge – “use the broom” as he said – the corrupt and criminal political appointees from his SDSM party. Zaev made the promise faced with the dramatic drop in support from the 2017 municipal elections, but so far few details were revealed about whether and to what extent the party leader who was twice accused and pardoned/aquitted of corruption himself is serious about tackling the rampant corruption and nepotism in his own party.

The “broom” will be deployed after the early general elections, in which this current Government will be relegated to its rightful place in the dark side of our history, Mickoski said.

The opposition leader also welcomed an announcement from Alliance of Albanians party that it will decide until Thursday on its position regarding the second round of the elections, but that it will likely not urge its supporters to vote for a candidate, or boycott the elections.

Their statement was in the direction of allowing the citizens to decide themselves whether to vote or not. I definitely don’t see it as a call to abstain from voting. It was a call that supports the democratic processes in the country, Mickoski said.

Later today, Mickoski campaigned in Cresovo, north of Skopje, where he met party supporters.

The sad truth about Macedonia today is that the citizens have difficult lives, they have their hearts in their throats. There isn’t a family that doesn’t face serious problems, in some cases of existential nature, in others it is injustice inflicted by the system, and in others still it is the fact that a huge number of the family and friends have already been pushed to move out of the country. This is not what our ancestors fought for. We know there is disappointment, but there is also hope, Mickoski said.