After winning general and presidential elections in 2024, the ruling VMRO DPMNE party is now poised to extend its dominance in North Macedonia to municipal level.
VMRO DPMNE’s narrative has been relentless, accusing the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, who ruled from 2017 to 2024 – but who failed to deal with corruption and push forward EU accession, despite accepting the country’s name change – of corruption, weak leadership and inability to defend national interests.
As party leaders and national topics dominate the local election campaign, sidelining the mayoral candidates and local issues, the same is happening in the ethnic Albanian bloc. Albanians make up about a quarter of the country’s 1.8 million residents.
The contest there, between the junior ruling VLEN [It’s worth it] alliance and the opposition Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, is harder to call, with the DUI framing the elections as a “referendum” on which side has the right to represent Albanians in government.
“It is already clear that VMRO DPMNE will win by a landslide at these elections,” said Skopje-based political analyst Agim Jonuz.
For Prime Minister Hristian Mickoski, a sweeping victory could potentially serve as a springboard for early parliamentary elections next year, despite his current stance of rejecting that as a possibility.