North Macedonia’s President Stevo Pendarovski nominated the leader of the Social Democrats, Dimitar Kovacevski, as the country’s new prime minister on Wednesday.
This follows the formal resignation of former Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev as premier last week, to pave the way for new coalition talks.
The vote was held a day after Zaev stepped down as prime minister in the wake of multiple defeats in October in mayoral and local government elections.
The country’s president offered a mandate after the small ethnic Albanian party Alternative agreed to join a Social Democrat-led coalition as a junior partner, securing a majority with 64 seats in the 120-member parliament.
A former Deputy Finance Minister, 47-year-old Kovacevski was recently elected as the left-wing party’s new leader after Zaev also relinquished the Social Democrats’ leadership.
After receiving the mandate he has 20 days to propose a new government to Parliament.
His new cabinet is expected to be elected by mid-January.
Kovacevski said that the priority for the new cabinet will be to “deal with economic insecurity and living standard of people”.
