Skopje, 12 December 2021 (MIA) – SDSM is set to elect a new party leader on Sunday. Three candidates are running for party leader: Dimitar Kovachevski, current deputy finance minister, Frosina Remenski, former MP and SDSM vice-president, and Jovan Despotovski, Free Zones Authority director. Current party leader Zoran Zaev resigned from the post after the party’s defeat the local elections. He was first elected SDSM leader in 2013. SDSM currently has 51,228 active members. All members who possess an e-membership card can vote in Sunday’s intra-party elections at 194 polling places nationwide, between 8 am and 7 pm. In an interview with MIA, candidate Dimitar Kovachevski stressed that SDSM should be implementing the European agenda intensely. We, he added, cannot expect that someone else, including the EU, will solve the issues for us. According to him, national policy should be a priority as well as to raise the living standards, strengthen the economy. Kovachevski expressed belief that the new party strategy and reorganization will restore support. “I consider intraparty division and games very unproductive. Therefore, I will unite rather than divide in my communications and I will lead constructive intraparty debate,” he told MIA. The elections, Kovachevski stressed, should be organized in an efficient and democratic way before starting to focus on solving issues of the interest of the citizens. “This is what the citizens expect from us, the party; they don’t expect us to be entangled in endless debates. I will not allow that. The citizens want solutions and hard work,” said the candidate. Being a member of SDSM for so many years, he expects to be supported many fellow party members, current and past officials he has been cooperating with very successfully. “If I’m elected leader, I will focus on quality changes which our citizens and our members expect and will recognize very soon,” Kovachevski noted. He believes the efficiency of governing and meeting promises should be increased all the while putting the focus more on the real needs of the citizens. According to Kovachevski, greater focus should be put on key issues at home, sound management by professionals at posts and accountability from every official for their job. Moreover, he stressed that SDSM has to improve its communication with the members. We, he added, shouldn’t be calling them only before elections or when the party needs something, the members must be engaged all the time, we must make sure their voice is heard. It’s not enough the members to be heard, they have to see that their requirements are applied, Kovachevski said. “SDSM has to resume its excellent social policies, it has to raise the minimum and average wage. Furthermore, responsible governance and unwavering fight to crime and corruption is a must. Better consistency between what we talk about and what we do is needed, it’s the only way to restore trust. SDSM has always been and it must be the party that unites. In the local elections, we’d allowed the party’s coalition potential to drop, but there was also intraparty discord, which resulted in division in the elections. My main goal is to unite the party and overcome the differences,” Kovachevski told MIA. Also, according to him, SDSM should be implementing the European agenda intensely. Operationalized steps to return social democracy to its original roots – workers and trade union movements and organizations, workers’ rights, social equality by restoring a progressive tax solution, especially in times of economic, energy, health and social crisis are some of the areas of Frosina Remenski, who is running in the SDSM party elections to become the leader of the ruling party, she said in an interview with MIA. She said she will return the power to the base from where we will draw the legitimacy of the decisions. “I will turn the pyramid upside down. The base will be the top – the top will be the base. I will maximize the autonomy of youth and women’s organizations,” Remenski noted. According to her, uniting the party is its toughest upcoming task, adding that vanity battles and battles for influence and positions in the party have to stop. She noted that successes must not be allowed to be individualized and failures to be collectivized. “I will unite the party by calling all honest members and SDSM fighters, all esteemed and forgotten members and past party leaders to sit down at the same table, look each other in the eye and talk. This act will decide the party’s future, and I’m convinced that this is the only way to convince everyone that we have a common goal, regardless of the approach being fair or not,” Remenski underlined. SDSM, she added, must stand on the side of the workers and the existence of their families, to stimulate economic measures in the business community, but with strict control to ensure those funds end up with the workers. “I guarantee real decentralization of the party organization and deconcentrating of power and decision-making. I will introduce young people to a new system of work by applying software solutions of the 22nd century, by including artificial intelligence as a form of efficiency in decision making and excluding any subjectivity. The youth will be users of already prepared software and software packages that I will donate to the party so that we can be in step with Western European countries, and young people can feel like modern leaders of real innovation,” Remenski noted, stressing that women are the drivers of all victories in SDSM. I, she added, will not allow a distinction to be made between the members of the party as to who comes from where and to which social stratum they belong. This, according to her, is not a social democratic value, although it exists and is most felt by members of rural areas. Remenski expressed optimism that we can hope for the start of negotiations with the EU soon, but I also want to express my real position and doubt that Bulgaria will hardly deviate from its already declared positions and demands. She reiterated that the challenge of running two functions at the same time (Prime Minister and party leader) will lead to the inevitable failure at one of the two responsibilities. “I have been a minister and as a vice president simultaneously and as an MP and I know how difficult it is to respond to all tasks and expectations at the same time. My concept of deconcentrating and decentralization of power, organization and decision-making in the party is one of the solutions to eliminate those difficulties,” Remenski told MIA. Concept 28 is a serious change of the way to apply politics. The focus of every policy, of every government and political organization are the people, their practical needs, their problems, candidate for SDSM leader, Jovan Despotovski has said in an interview with MIA. “Concept 28 is the basis for serious changes in the way politics is practiced. The people and their practical needs and issues are becoming the focus of every policy, government and political organization. No more talking about portfolios, functions, agreements, and policies that are not based on realistic, measurable goals. Concept 28 presents precise, measurable results that will measure the performance that the next SDSM president will do,” he stressed. According to Despotovski, SDSM is a political organization that showed that it has the knowledge and capability to preserve the Macedonian national identity and expressed belief that they’ll show this in conversations with Bulgaria, too. Regarding the fact that the new party leader may also be Prime Minister, he noted that he doesn’t shy away from challenge, but doesn’t think that one person has to do both things. Despotovski said that if he gain SDSM’s trust to lead it, he will organize a broad discussion of the character, traits and qualities for the new PM. “Concept 28 introduces a higher degree of responsibility for public office holders. We’re implementing a system in which mayor and MP candidates will be chosen from the members instead of the leadership. Therefore, public office holders will focus on the people, not the leader. Public functions carry a great deal of responsibility, and whoever is chosen can’t hide from the public, their friends and neighbors. We will communicate about all open issues,” said the leader candidate. He added that he’s not offering more, but  offering better, more effective. “I’m putting in all I’ve got, all my knowledge and skills into achieving this goal – a dignified, wonderful life for all. No one gets left behind. That’s my concept of victory, not a personal one, but a victory for all,” Despotovski told MIA. He added that support for SDSM president comes from many different angles, members and sympathizers alike, friends, acquaintances, even strangers stop him in the streets, or write to him. “Concept 28 introduces an entirely new approach to choosing office holders. We won’t start from ‘who’, we’ll start from ‘what’ kind of person we need. It starts from me. That’s why we’re going to implement this model in the election of a new PM. If I gain SDSM’s trust to lead it, we will organize a broad discussion of the character, traits and qualities for the new PM,” Despotovski noted. Current SDSM leader Zoran Zaev announced his resignation on Oct. 31, following defeat at the local elections. On Nov. 26, SDSM’s central board approved his resignation. This is SDMS’s second intra-party election, after the party held its first just nine months ago. Zaev is not the first SDSM leader to resign. In 2004, Branko Crvenkovski quit in the middle of his term to run for President, while Radmila Shekerinska left the post four years later, after the party’s defeat at early parliamentary election. Zaev was first elected SDSM leader at a congress in 2013, when he ran against two other candidates. Previously, he was mayor of Strumica.