President Stevo Pendarovski told the press that he is not certain elections will take place on April 12th next year, as the major parties agreed at the crisis meeting organized by Pendarovski after Macedonia was not given the date to open EU accession talks. A number of top officials from the ruling SDSM party, which is down in the polls, said that the elections may be postponed because of the issue with Spain not being able to ratify Macedonia’s NATO accession protocol in time.

I’m not convinced the elections will take place since it is not up to me. The Parliament is dissolved with 61 votes in favor and it depends on when these votes will be found, Pendarovski said.

The Parliament is supposed to dissolve on February 11th so that elections could be held on April 12th. The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party proposed that Macedonia pre-ratifies the NATO accession protocol without waiting on Spain, in order to avoid delays on end if the Spanish ratification happens between February 11th and April 12th, when Macedonia will not have a Parliament. Pendarovski said that he is fine with this option, but the Zaev Government has not advanced the proposal forward, which allows it to keep the option of postponing the elections on the pretext of NATO ratification.