Members of Parliament from the SDSM led coalition have announced that they will support the proposal to reorganize the Government, put before Parliament by VMRO-DPMNE. This indicates that SDSM could lose some of its 18 votes in Parliament, as the party is being sent to the opposition after 7 years in power.

Republika has learnt that, after the Liberal-Democratic Party, which has 1 vote in Parliament, another smaller SDSM coalition partner – NSDP – also plans to vote in favor of the proposal that requires a two thirds majority of 80 votes. NSDP leader Goran Misovski and Sonja Mirakovska are the two members of the party that managed to secure winning seats in the SDSM led list. SDSM leader Dimitar Kovacevski rudely insulted NSDP during the elections – he was chastising rebel SDSM officials who joined Kumanovo Mayor Maksim Dimitrievski in forming a new party and warned them that they will end up being a “minor party that will have to come back to SDSM, just like NSDP did back in the day”. This did not sit well with Misovski, who reminded Kovacevski that he is currently his coalition partner and will win seats in Parliament. It is likely that this insult influenced NSDP to consider breaking the alliance with SDSM and switching sides and staying on the winning side.

LDP leader Monika Zajkova, who campaigned together with Kovacevski and was given a prominent place on the SDSM list in the 1st electoral district, already announced that she will vote in favor of the VMRO proposal. If NSDP and LDP join VMRO, they would help the new ruling coalition get to a two-thirds majority.

The current proposal would create a few new Government departments and re-organize several more. The new departments will manage energy and mining, sports and digital transformation of the country. Reorganizing departments would mean that the Welfare Ministry will give greater emphasis on demographics, the Culture Ministry will also focus on tourism, and the Economy Ministry will have additional powers to manage the labour market. This majority could also be used for other major changes, including possibly in the upcoming talks with Bulgaria, which demands constitutional changes in Macedonia.

Levica also offered to support the proposal to reorganize the Government, but they conditioned this with their old request that the electoral model is changed and the current six electoral districts are replaced with a single district covering the entire country. If this is done, Levica said that it would vote in favor of the proposal. VMRO agrees with the idea in general, but also wants to reduce the number of seats in Parliament down to 90, to avoid having minor parties enter Parliament.