The leaders of the two main parties in Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski and Zoran Zaev, failed to reach agreement on the date of the next elections. President Stevo Pendarovski, who came out heavily on the side of his party leader Zaev today and ended the state of emergency, which leaves Macedonai without a legislative authority, convened a meeting to push for quick elections. Zaev demands that the vote takes place as early as July 5, hoping that the low from the electorate scared of the badly mishandled coronavirus, will advantage his SDSM party.

Mickoski and his VMRO-DPMNE party demand that elections are held later, once the epidemic has been put under control and all parties had the chance to campaign properly. He has proposed dates in August or September. Both leaders gave short statements afterwards. Zaev said that it’s possible they talk on Saturday and that they agreed not to disclose additional information till then. Mickoski added that the meeting failed to lead to an agreement.

Different aspects of the electoral process were discussed and both sides offered arguments in favor of their positions. No agreement was reached during the meeting on setting a date for early elections. Both leaders agreed to continue the communication among themselves, Pendarovski’s office said in a press release.

US Ambassador Kate Byrnes also came out, shortly before the meeting, calling on Macedonia to hold elections. Previously, EU Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi called on the country to set the election date inclusively having in mind both the Covid-19 threat and the damage to the economy.