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North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev
Photo: GEORGI LICOVSKI / EPA
North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has resigned after a loss in the national local elections.
The politician, who is considered a pro-Western reformer, resigned his offices as head of government and chairman of the social democratic party SDSM on Sunday, as the state news agency MIA reported.
"I take full responsibility for the election defeat," Zaev said.
He also spoke out against early parliamentary elections.
Observers assume that SDSM will propose a new candidate for the office of prime minister.
The looming defeat of the SDSM in the capital Skopje was considered particularly serious.
In this case, Zaev had already announced his resignation before the vote.
The 47-year-old had been head of government since August 2020, previously he held the office from May 2017 to January 2020.
His special merit is the settlement of the name dispute with neighboring Greece, which was a prerequisite for North Macedonia's accession to NATO in 2020.
For this, Zaev and his Greek colleague Alexis Zipras were awarded the Ewald von Kleist Prize at the Munich Security Conference in 2019.
The end of this dispute was also a prerequisite for the start of accession negotiations with the EU - but the negotiations were rejected by the EU heads of state and government.
That is why Zaev came under fire internally and resigned in early 2020.
Narrow majority for Zaev's party
In Skopje, the opposition candidate for the mayor's office, Danela Arsovska, won the runoff election with 55.85 percent of the vote, ahead of the previous incumbent Petre Sigelov from Zaev's party, who got 40.6 percent.
This was announced by the central election office after 60 percent of the votes were counted.
Arsovska had run as a non-party with the support of the conservative opposition party VMRO-DPMNE.
Observers believed further political consequences were possible.
The election defeat could also shake the narrow majority of Zaev's coalition - through renegade parliamentarians, it said.
Together with the co-ruling parties of the Albanian minority, Zaevs SDSM has only 62 out of 120 seats in parliament.
Nationwide, according to partial counting results, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE won 40 mayor positions in local elections and Zaev's SDSM only 18. At least 20 further 20 town halls are said to be run by representatives of smaller parties, some of which represent the ethnic Albanians and are allied with Zaev's party.
The local elections took place in two rounds.
Even in the first round two weeks ago, the opposition was ahead.
Mayor runoff elections followed on Sunday in a total of 44 towns - including Skopje.
lukewarm / dpa