Although the two main parties, VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM, are virtually tied in the still contested results of the early general elections, media outlets linked to SDSM are busily pushing a narrative that it was a defeat for VMRO leader Hristijan Mickoski, and that he needs to resign as a result.

Both parties expected to do better, and both Mickoski and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev announced that they will easily win the controversial low turnout “corona election”. SDSM had to resort to a pre-election coalition with the BESA party to match VMRO, and both parties won almost the same number of seats – 46 for SDSM and BESA (42 for SDSM alone) and 44 for VMRO.

Still, Zaev declared victory, and a group of former VMRO members of Parliament who his regime bribed and blackmailed into supporting the imposed name change – the so called Gang of Eight – supported by the former security chief Saso Mijalkov who was demonized by SDSM but now works with them, have called for the removal of Hristijan Mickoski as VMRO leader.

But while VMRO has been managing these attacks for years, SDSM is freshly put in a position to possibly lose its grip on power. The party has three major wings whose interests overlap only when they can be assured in having access to power.

Zaev leads to so called Strumica wing, surrounded mainly by people from the rural parts of the country, often seen as uncouth by the other, urban, Skopje based wing, often grouped around professors and diplomats. Zaev’s wing is seen as deeply corrupt, with the Zaev family personally leading the charge in this regard. But top “urban wing” officials such as his deputy Radmila Sekerinska are also facing allegations linked to the Racket scandal.

And finally, the third wing, the Albanian portion of the party led by Muhamed Zekiri, showed it’s unable to hold its own, forcing Zaev to opt for a coalition with BESA, going down the path of many other socialist parties in Europe – relying on minority voters to compensate the votes they are losing in the majority community. Zekiri only secured two seats in Parliament for the Albanian faction in SDSM, but he carries with him a bitter dispute with the DUI party, which is now seen as crucial for any future coalition. In this regard, Zekiri could be seen as more trouble than he’s worth by his fellow party members, but is personally very close to Zaev and has stayed on despite his clear inability to repeat the success the party had with Albanian voters in 2016.

The future relationship between these factions, only united by their mutual hatred of VMRO-DPMNE and by an unprecedented international campaign to rename Macedonia, will depend on whether they are able to cobble together a coalition that will protect them from a serious investigation into their corruption allegations.