The President of the Parliament of North Macedonia, Jovan Mitrevski announced in the afternoon the holding of both presidential and parliamentary elections in the country.

All electoral contests in the country are announced by its respective president Parliament.

According to the decree signed by the Speaker of the Parliament, the first round of the presidential elections will be held on April 24. In the event that none of the candidates receives more than 50% (which is considered almost certain) then there will be a second round on May 8, which will coincide with the parliamentary elections.

The major parties have not yet named their presidential candidates. Only the nationalist, pro-Russian party “Left” announced that its candidate in the presidential elections will be the university professor, Biliana Vankowska.

The tenure of the outgoing president of North Macedonia, Stevo Pendarovsky (comes from the ruling Social Democratic Party -SDSM-) expires on May 12.

As for the upcoming parliamentary elections, the right-wing opposition VMRO-DPMNE, led by Christian Mickoski it is ahead, according to all opinion polls, and indeed by a large margin of the ruling SDSM led by the former Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevsky.

In the last parliamentary elections held in the country in July 2020, the SDSM, led by Zoran Zaev at the time, narrowly won.

On January 28, 2024 it was set at North Macedonia caretaker government (based on the relevant electoral legislation), which will lead the country until the elections. The head of this government was appointed from the Albanian party DUI, Talat Jafferywho thus became the first Albanian prime minister in the country’s history.