With the decision to hold early election, Macedonia is about to enter into a complicated power sharing agreement over a technical Government. The so-called Przino Government will be formed along the lines of the deal negotiated under pressure from the US and the EU in 2015, when Zoran Zaev and his SDSM party demanded additional guarantees before accepting to face VMRO-DPMNE led by Nikola Gruevski. The rules are named for the Skopje district of Przino, where the EU Ambassador’s residence is situated, in which the talks between Zaev, Gruevski and other leaders took place.

This time around, Zaev will be the one who has to resign 100 days before the elections. The elections are set for April 12th 2020, which means that Zaev needs to resign on January 3rd. SDSM will still get to appoint an interim Prime Minister, widely expected to be Oliver Spasovski – Zaev’s top loyalist and current Interior Minister.

VMRO-DPMNE will appoint an interim Interior Minister in Spasovski’s place. This is done to ensure that the practice of widespread abuse of the police for political ends is put an end in the pre-election period. Zaev’s regime ordered the arrests of dozens of top VMRO officials and activists, using staged trials, and it is expected that this will stop the campaign of persecution.

VMRO will also appoint an Interim Labour and Welfare Minister – this department is responsible for managing many welfare programs which are also often abused for vote buying. Three interim deputy ministers will also be appointed by VMRO, in the departments of Finance, Public Administration and Agriculture, who will have veto power over hiring and spending decisions, as well as dozens of officials across the ministries.

SDSM abused the system put in place in 2015, and kept refusing to participate in the elections, which protracted the appointment of their technical ministers, waiting for Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva to help them weaken the VMRO enough before they eventually participated in the December 2016 elections. Of this team, Janeva is currently detained on racketeering charges, while Frosina Remenski, who was the SDSM interim Welfare Minister, is in house arrest for the same scandal. Aleksandar Kiracovski, who was appointed to the Public Administration Ministry, was interrogated for his role in the scandal, but is not yet charged.