The SDSM Central Board is to hold a session on Friday to discuss the resignation of party leader Zoran Zaev. The session was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but was postponed after the Government declared three days of national mourning due to the fatal bus accident in Bulgaria.

If the resignation is accepted, a procedure for electing a new party president begins. According to the Statute of the party, a deadline of 15 days is provided for announcing intra-party elections for a new president of SDSM. The elections are direct, by secret ballot for all registered members. As announced by Zaev himself, the new president should be the prime minister-designate of the new government. Unofficial names for a future prime minister are already circulating in the public.

But not everyone in SDSM agrees with this position. Interlocutors of Deutsche Welle say that at this moment it is most productive for the future leader of the party not to be a prime minister.

The leader will have to commit to the party and prepare it for the next parliamentary elections, whenever they are. That is a huge responsibility. It is not good for the same person to be a prime minister, and they should be “tested” at a time when the country is facing energy, pandemic, integration and many other challenges. There are enough competent and experienced people in the government for that, said a longtime member of the party.

Unofficial names for a future prime minister are already circulating in the public. There is especially growing speculations that the favorite for this position is Dimitar Kovacevski, current Deputy Minister of Finance, chairman of the party Committee on Finance and Budget and member of the EB of SDSM. Those speculations gained additional popularity after Kovacevski accompanied Zaev at last week’s meeting with the leader of Alternative, Afrim Gashi.

It is legitimate for Zaev to be accompanied to the meeting by a member of the Executive Board, but if it was intended to send a possible message about the preferences of the leader, it is a wrong move. It is not the commitment to get an ousted candidate and ousted leader, a party source told Deutsche Welle.