After Zoran Zaev announced his resignation as Prime Minister and leader of the SDSM party, the predictions and the combinations who will succeed him have already started.

It is very likely that the person who will be elected Prime Minister first will also be the new leader of SDSM. Party elections can take place in a few months, but prime minister must be elected as soon as possible.

There should be no doubt that Zaev will choose the prime minister-designate as the new prime minister and that it will be a person he trusts the most.

At this moment, it is certainly the Deputy Prime Minister Ljupco Nikolovski. Zaev will surely lead the new government from the side and that is why he needs someone who can control.

As for the election of a new SDSM leader, things are different there. Structures in the party that are pacified and set aside already show ambitions for the leadership position, but it will be more difficult because SDSM changed the statute and the election of the leader is decided by the members themselves in direct elections.

SDSM in May this year held a congress in which Zaev won convincingly but he was the only candidate.

There will certainly be more candidates for the election of a new leader, and the so-called “Skopje wing” will certainly have its own candidate, and supporters of Branko Crvenkovski will get involved for sure.

It will not be a surprise if the current director of the PRO Sanja Lukarevska is nominated and elected as the new leader of SDSM.

Zaev has been the leader of SDSM since 2013. The party also has a vice-president, Sanja Lukarevska, and four deputy vice-presidents, Mila Carovska, Venko Filipce, Fatmir Bitiqi and Oliver Spasovski.