The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party accused Zoran Zaev and his ruling SDSM party of causing the current Second Wave of the coronavirus epidemic. SDSM was desperate to hold elections in June, hoping that an exceptionally low turnout from citizens scared about the coronavirus will turn to their advantage. SDSM campaigned for weeks, and now dozens of party officials are either infected or in quarantine, and ordered that the movement restrictions are lifted just as the Second Wave spiked.

Macedonia ranks 103rd on the Forbes list of countries in their handling of the epidemic. But that wasn’t enough for SDSM to drop their demand for urgent elections. Zoran Zaev is risking the lives of thousands of our citizens, and caused chaos in the country with conflicting proposals. While his party officials are cruising across Macedonia, the citizens are locked in their apartments, VMRO-DPMNE said in a press release.

SDSM still insists on urgent elections, now pushing July 5 as the date, but with numbers of new infections over 100 for seven days in a row and with the very high mortality rate, their goal looks more and more out of reach.Only a quarter of voters in a recent poll said that they want elections as soon as possible. Over 40 percent said that the vote should take place in late August or September – dates favored by VMRO-DPMNE as much safer.