Mickoski celebrates a 4-to-1 win over SDSM in Brvenica, but his candidate got 445 fewer votes than a year ago

On Sunday evening Hristijan Mickoski came out with a number that sounds like a knockout: VMRO-DPMNE's candidate in Brvenica beat SDSM's candidate, and the margin, he said, was "bigger than four to one". That's true. But put Sunday's result next to last October's, and the picture is a lot less triumphant than it sounded from the podium.

According to the State Election Commission, with 100 percent of polling stations counted, Stojančo Radičevski of the VMRO-DPMNE-led "Your Macedonia" coalition won 2,943 votes, or 38.9 percent. Second was Arkin Jahij of the DUI-led National Alliance for Integration, with 2,152 votes and 28.4 percent. Third was Jakup Huseini of Vlen with 1,528 votes, fourth was Jovica Radeski of the SDSM coalition with 706, while independent candidates Dušan Bogdanovski and Arife Idrizi won 55 and 21 votes. Since nobody won the required majority, Brvenica votes again on 1 November, in a head-to-head between Radičevski and Jahij.

What the comparison with last year shows

The snap election was held because the incumbent mayor, Jovica Ilievski of VMRO-DPMNE, died on 23 June. In October 2025 he came first in the first round with 46.49 percent, or 3,388 votes. His party's candidate has now won 445 fewer votes - and that on a higher turnout. In percentage terms, that is a drop of 7.59 percentage points.

The biggest jump was DUI's. A year ago its coalition's candidate had 1,147 votes and 15.7 percent; now he has 2,152 votes and 28.4 percent, almost twice as many. Vlen went the opposite way: from 2,021 to 1,528 votes, 493 fewer. SDSM went from 481 to 706 votes, and in its analyses presents that as 46 percent growth.

So every party picked the number that suits it. For VMRO-DPMNE it's the ratio against SDSM, for SDSM the growth rate from a low base, for DUI the doubled vote. Vlen is the only party for which not a single number from Sunday works in its favour.

The calculations also differ on who backed whom. SDSM claims VMRO-DPMNE's drop is even bigger, over 20 percent, because its candidate was also backed by ZNAM and Levica. Mickoski, for his part, says the independent candidate backed by Levica won around fifty votes. Both claims can't be true at the same time.

The runoff depends on Vlen

On the evening after the vote, Vlen's candidate Jakup Huseini went in person to Jahij's headquarters to congratulate him on making the runoff, and footage of their embrace was published by several outlets. "For the patience, the courage, the hard work of both camps - and I believe this is the only way we can move forward," Jahij said. Asked whom the party would back in the runoff, Vlen spokesman Driton Sulejmani said the party presidency would decide.

That's a delicate position for a party that sits in government alongside VMRO-DPMNE. Vlen said it has so far allocated more than one million euros to settlements with a predominantly Albanian population and that "we have never made a distinction based on who runs the municipality". Now it has to choose between its coalition partner in government and the candidate Huseini personally congratulated. That decision will say more than any press release.

Mickoski said the result has "broader political significance" and confirms the policies of VMRO-DPMNE and the government. "Let's go for a complete victory," he said. If the result really has broader significance, then so do the 445 votes his party lost in a year. Which of the two conclusions will we hear from the government?