President Stevo Pendarovski predicts that, regardless of the outcome of the vote of no confidence tomorrow, Zoran Zaev will be out of politics in a matter of months. Zaev announced that he will resign as both Prime Minister and SDSM party leader after he lost the local elections, but is now backing off from the announcement, and is trying to fight the opposition’s push to vote him out.

Regardless of his announcements that he wants to remain active for an additional period of time, I think that his withdrawal from politics is a matter of months. When you make such a heavy political decision, after all those difficult years with the wiretaps and the referendum, there must be a set of motives and reasons. This was not determined overnight, Pendarovski said.

Pendarovski is seen as close to the so-called “urban wing” of SDSM, elements of which rebelled against Zaev because of his concessions to Bulgaria. This factionalism likely contributed to Zaev’s electoral defeat and is pushing him out of politics.