In a statement for Deutsche Welle, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski reacte to the old and new Government ministers proposed by the SDSM party. According to Mickoski, the list includes people responsible for major failures in the Zaev governments, who are also responsible for the major defeat SDSM suffered in the October local elections against VMRO.

You have people like Ljupco Nikolovski, in charge of fighting corruption, at a time when this Government is off the charts in all the lists measuring corruption. Bojan Maricic remains in the Government even after all the injustices and staged trials in the judiciary while he was Justice Minister. Oliver Spasovski, the key spokesman for the mafia, who was involved in major scandals including the selling of passports to the mafia and unresolved murders, remains Interior Minister. Fatmir Bytiqi remains as Deputy Prime Minister for economic development, after the fiasco we are experiencing, with runaway inflation, high prices, low wages. This Government represents a continuity of the Zaev governments, without new energy and freshness. It offers the same promises Zaev made, without a plan or strategy how to implement them. The same phrases. A Government nominally led by SDSM, but in reality, it serves under the DUI party, helped out by LDP, DOM and DS, who continue to support it because of their own perks, Mickoski said.

The opposition leader told Deutsche Welle that the only way forward is that Macedonia holds early elections, after the SDSM led coalition was clearly defeated in the local elections and is delegitimized. New SDSM leader Dimitar Kovacevski is hoping to have his proposed cabinet approved in Parliament by next week, and to keep the coalition together despite its defeat and obvious loss of popularity and legitimacy.