Zoran Zaev expressed his belief that the presidential election will be successful and the required 40 percent turnout will be reached. If not, he warned that Macedonia may enter a new political crisis. He warned that if the elections fail, he may try to use his majority in Parliament to amend the Constitution again so that the President is elected by the Parliament.

We expect that the elections will be 100 percent successful. I expect and I know we can meet the turnout requirement. When we talk about what could be, we demotivate the turnout. I believe that direct elections are more welcome but we always have at our disposal the tools to elect the President in Parliament and we have the tools to repeat elections. These are our legal options, Zaev said.

The September 2018 referendum Zaev called to rename Macedonia failed due to low turnout, below 37 percent, and the fact that Zaev’s Government subsequently renamed the country just the same created a powerful call to boycott the presidential elections as well, as a form of sending a message. But, unlike during the referendum, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party now does not call for a boycott and has its own candidate, seeing a win in these elections as the fastest way to delegitimize Zaev.

Zaev said that his main coalition partner DUI supports amending the Constitution. It has long been the DUI position that the President could be elected in the Parliament, which DUI believes would give more clout to the Albanian community in the country.