After Zoran Zaev announced his “operation broom” – a promise that he will dismiss numerous corrupt officials if the voters support his presidential candidate Stevo Pendarovski in the second round – a number of brooms were left in front of the Prilep town hall.

Each broom had a picture of a top SDSM official, Zaev and Pendarovski included, and the pranksters were asking Zaev to sweep himself. Whether the brooms were left by the opposition or by dissatisfied SDSM members, it exposes a problem in Zaev’s plan to remove corrupt officials after he himself escaped serious corruption charges for the second time running and greatly increased his personal business empire as Prime Minister. Also included were the faces of SDSM Prilep Mayor Ilija Jovanoski , Transportation Minister Goran Sugareski and powerful local SDSM politician Hari Lokvenec.

As in other cities across Macedonia, SDSM suffered a serious drop in its ratings in Prilep as well. Pendarovski and VMRO candidate Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova were essentially tied at 17.000 votes each in a city which SDSM won by more than 23.000 votes in 2017, and where it had a turnout of 20.000 votes in the September 2018 referendum.