Prime Minister Zoran Zaev again endorsed the attempts of the Saso Mijalkov faction to cause divisions in VMRO-DPMNE. After a court date today, Zaev said that spring will be a good time to hold congresses in the major parties and elect new leadership. “It is time for greater democratization of the parties”, Zaev added, in clear support of the initiative put forward this week by Mijalkov’s group.
His SDSM party is holding its first ever open election for a new leadership in late March, while VMRO-DPMNE is set to have a congress in November. But a faction of former party officials led by Saso Mijalkov, known as the Merriott coalition after the hotel that serves as Mijalkov’s base of operations, announced that it will hold its separate congress in March, alongside SDSM. Their move comes as audio leaks showed that Zaev and Mijalkov have been in secret coordination since mid 2016, and their goal seems to be to create divisions and work against VMRO leader Hristijan Mickoski in the run up to the October municipal elections.
On Thursday Zaev also hinted his support for a new congress in VMRO. VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski, who today confronted Zaev over a slander case about Zaev’s racketeering allegations in court, said that Zaev’s SDSM party is in daily direct coordination with several members of Mijalkov’s group, which includes several former mayors with extensive business deals with both Mijalkov and businessmen close to Zaev, and several lower level former officials.
Their goal is to keep the public occupied with foolish initiatives, instead of the fact that Macedonia is the only country where people are dying because the Government is unable to obtain vaccines. This group works for SDSM now, and while they were still in our party they did all they could to help SDSM and divide VMRO-DPMNE. I call on the Government to focus of finding vaccines and on ending the economic decline instead, and I call on this group to stop working for Zoran Zaev, Nikoloski said.
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