VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Vladimir Misajlovski called on President Stevo Pendarovski to drop his blind loyalty to the ruling SDSM party and begin acting like a head of state for all its citizens. Pendarovski joined Zoran Zaev in his push for quick “corona elections” in July and put an end to the state of emergency despite the grim record setting numbers of deaths and newly infected patients. According to Zaev, this now automatically resumes the electoral process – a claim other parties, including the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, deny.

VMRO-DPMNE has only two requests. That a protocol that would protect voter health is put in place and that the elections are placed under international monitoring on the part of OSCEODIHR, Misajlovski said in a message to Pendarovski.

Pendarovski said that he may resume the state of emergency, but only if the Government asks him to – which would again fit in with Zaev’s political calculations that a low turnout “corona election” is best for SDSM.