VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski sees the outcome of the first round of the presidential elections as a dominant victory for the main opposition party, which was able to overcome the constant judicial assault on its officials and threats and attacks from the Zaev Government to equal the result of the ruling SDSM and DUI parties combined.

VMRO-DPMNE is moving forward and we expect a powerful win in the second round. Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova will be the next President of the Republic of Macedonia, Mickoski said in an interview with Kanal 5 TV.

According to the opposition leader, VMRO was able to increase its votes from the 2017 municipal elections by 12.5 percent, even though presidential elections are usually seen as far lower turnout than the municipal ones, which feature thousands of candidates.

While VMRO improved on its disappointing 2017 result, the ruling SDSM led coalition, even though expanded not only with DUI but with dozens of other smaller parties, actually lost a tremendous share of its 2017 vote – 200.000 votes or about two fifths of the total. VMRO was able to best the combined power of SDSM and DUI in most municipalities, including in most bellwether cities like Bitola or Skopje’s Aerodrom district.