Elections to Be Held Simultaneously on 8 May

The parliamentary elections and the second round of the presidential election will be held on 8 May, it was decided at the leaders’ meeting on Monday.

There was no deal on constitutional changes, while the Electoral Code changes will concern only OSCE/ODIHR recommendations. As PM and SDSM leader Dimitar Kovacevski said, the previous day, SDSM’s Executive Board had held a meeting at which it decided to start a procedure for a presidential candidate.

It was also agreed for a wide pre-election European front to be formed. VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski reiterated his stand that there are currently no conditions for constitutional changes.

Mickoski said he was concerned that there were no developments in relation to the State Election Commission member position that, in his view, belongs to the ethnic Albanian opposition. Exactly over that matter, BESA, Alternative, and Democratic Movement left the leaders’ meeting.