A poll conducted by the IPSOS agency, for VMRO-DPMNE, shows that the ruling party leads SDSM by almost a double margin -22 to 12.9 percent. The 1,000 polled citizens were asked to rank the parties, but discount their current coalition partners – SDSM relies on a dozen of smaller ethnic and single issue parties that currently support them, but often switch sides and go to the victor.

The poll shows that DUI ranks third, with 6.2 percent of the vote, followed by Levica with 5.4. The Albanian opposition parties, AA, BESA and Alternative, rank at 2.8, 2 and 1.3 percent respectively.

Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski’s work was ranked as very bad by 24 percent of the voters and bad by 38 percent. He got a good grade from 24 percent of the polled and very good by just 11 percent.

On other issues, the citizens cited economic problems at the top, with the poor living standards cited by 20 percent of those polled and the economy and finances at 19 percent. Unemployment was cited as the main problem by 10 percent and corruption – by 6 percent.

Regarding the dispute with Bulgaria, only 10 percent support the Bulgarian request that Macedonia amends its Constitution and names the Bulgarian nation in it with no preconditions and no written guarantees that this will mean an end to its veto policy. 39 percent agree with the amendment, but demand a written guarantee, which is the position of VMRO-DPMNE. 32 percent want both a written guarantee and a reciprocal move by Bulgaria – naming the Macedonians in the Bulgarian Constitution.

On the war in Ukraine, 29 percent said that they support the Ukrainian side, 13 percent support Russia and 10 percent said they support both sides. The largest group of respondents – 38 percent – said they support neither side and 10 percent replied – “don’t know”.