Without any votes against, Nikola Gruevski has been reelected president of governing VMRO-DPMNE and the party is going to stay the course over the next four years as well. At the 14th party congress held in Bitola, of 639 present delegates, 610 took part in the vote, 609 voted in favor and one ballot was invalid.

Thanking for the trust, Gruevski addressed directly his biggest rival, opposition leader Branko Crvenkovski, inviting him to elections and reiterating that “no one has the right to hold Macedonia hostage”. Either the con man or the rule of law and the institutions of the state wins, Gruevski said.

“We chose the path of reforms, modernization and Europe and on that path there are no insurmountable obstacles. Let the people decide what Macedonia they wish to live in, a reform or a transition one, a Macedonia in which politicians keep their promises or not. We are ready for the new challenge. We are going to win. Macedonia is going to win,” he said.

The adopted documents unambiguously point out that over the next period changes in the VMRO-DPMNE policies should not be expected.

Gruevski made maximum use of the two congress days to raise the party members’ pre-election adrenalin. He said that as of next week every minister and functionary would be on the ground for at least one day a week to learn more about and a find a solution to the problems citizens faced.

“We have not yet decided what we are going to do. The leadership is going to take the decision this week,” said SDSM vice president Gordan Georgiev, reiterating that the candidate that they would propose for president of the State Election Commission (DIK) should be voted on only after they return to Parliament, once their demands are met.

VMRO-DPMNE Secretary General Martin Protoger says in his interview with Publika: “We want elections and when they are held depends on the procedures that have to be carried out in Parliament, that is to say on the time required to adopt all Crvenkovski’s demands. And they are either adopted or in a stage of adoption.”

Ljubomir Frckoski, SDSM’s candidate for president in the last presidential elections, said in an interview with A1 television that the early elections were an initiative of SDSM and the party was not going to boycott them by staying at home in sleepers and watching how the government votes without them.

“If the government insists on running without SDSM, faced with the assumption that it will lose the elections this way or another, it will not be able to carry out such elections, because unrest will occur on the election day,” Frckoski says.

In his view, the unrest will happen spontaneously considering that the support for SDSM rises and the supporters expect a government shift