North Macedonia’s Prime Minister and leader of the ruling VMRO DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski, speaks at a press conference in his party’s headquarters in Skopje, October 19, 2025. Photo: EPA/GEORGI LICOVSKI.
The ruling VMRO DPMNE party won local election contests on Sunday by a landslide in almost all ethnic Macedonian-majority areas, leaving its main opposition rival, the Social Democrats, SDSM, in the dust.
VMRO DPMNE mayoral candidates came first in 53 out the country’s 81 municipalities, including in the capital, Skopje, the main prize in these polls. In more than 30 municipalities, the ruling party is on course to win mayoral seats outright after securing more than half of the votes in the first round of voting.
“We ensured this victory by work, by persistence. The road is not easy but Macedonia has strength, people and will,” the Prime Minister and head of VMRO DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski, said in Skopje late on Sunday, after his supporters gathered to celebrate.
The opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, took a lead only in eight mostly smaller towns or rural areas, according to the preliminary results released by the State Electoral Commission, after 99.94 per cent of the votes were counted.
They suffered a crushing defeat even in their stronghold for the past two decades, the south-eastern town of Strumica.
In Skopje, their candidate for mayor, Kaja Shukova, did not even make it to the second round, slated for November 2. There, VMRO DPMNE’s Orce Georgievski took a convincing lead and will now compete against the runner-up, Amar Mecinovic, from the Levica [Left] party.
The SDSM’s leader, Venko Filipce, framed the results as the start of a long process of consolidation of the party, after its crushing defeat and loss of power in last year’s general election. He insisted the party won slightly more votes on Sunday than in the general election last year.
The results are “not what we hoped for” but were “not bad”, he said, adding that, “Our messages are reaching a huge number of people and in truth, this is a beginning of sorts.”
In the ethnic Albanian‑majority municipalities the race was more competitive. Albanians make up roughly a quarter of the country’s population.
The junior ruling Albanian party, VLEN, [It’s Worth It] won in the first round in five municipalities, as did its main rivals, the coalition led by the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.
But VLEN had more reason to celebrate, having taken a lead in four more Albanian-dominated municipalities, while the DUI had none. VLEN also retained control of the important urban centre of Tetovo and the Skopje municipality of Cair, where the race symbolically pitted Izet Mexhiti, one of VLEN’s leaders, against the DUI’s vice-president, Bujar Osmani.
“Albanians in these elections have sent the strongest message. The time of Ali Ahmeti [the veteran DUI leader] is over,” a VLEN spokesperson, Driton Sulejmani, said on Sunday night.
The DUI won in only one major urban centre, the town of Gostivar, and its leader, Ahmeti did not address the public on Sunday night. The party said it was filing complaints about alleged election irregularities in several places.
Other political parties or independent candidates secured leads in only five municipalities.
The first round of the eighth local elections in the country since independence passed off in a calm atmosphere, with only minor incidents and irregularities detected, the Interior Ministry and election monitors said after polls closed.
The turnout was just under 48 per cent, a slight decline from the 50 per cent who voted in the previous local elections in 2021, the State Election Commission said.
In those municipalities where a mayor is not elected in the first round by winning more than half of the votes, a second round will be held on November 2.