265 votes in it in Brvenica: VMRO-DPMNE goes looking for a "Trojan horse" in its own coalition partner

Brvenica has a new mayor, elected by a margin of 265 votes. According to preliminary results from the State Election Commission, Arkin Jahiji, candidate of the DUI-led National Alliance for Integration, won 4,442 votes or 50.36 percent, and Stojančo Radičevski of the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition "Your Macedonia" got 4,177 votes or 47.36 percent. 8,820 people voted, or 54.29 percent of registered voters.

The election was an early one, called after the death of VMRO-DPMNE mayor Jovica Ilievski, who died in June. In the first round Radičevski came first with 2,945 votes, and Jahiji second with 2,152. In the runoff, the picture flipped.

Defeat with accounting

The ruling party explains the defeat with numbers that sound like a win. Spokesman Valentin Manasievski says the result is "more than excellent", because VMRO-DPMNE got 1,300 more votes than in the last parliamentary election. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski wrote "Alone against everyone" on Facebook and boasted of growth "from 3000 to 4200" votes since the first round.

That's comparing apples and pears - a local runoff against a parliamentary election, two completely different kinds of vote. And the most important number in Brvenica isn't the growth, it's the gap: 265 votes fewer than the opponent.

The Trojan horse in your own house

More interesting is who VMRO-DPMNE declared to blame. Besides the SDSM and Levica candidates, the party also pointed at Vredi and its own coalition partner VLEN, saying they played the role of "Trojan horse" and split the vote in DUI's favour. The response from the Albanian camp was that "no political party controls votes or can claim to own them".

At the same time, VMRO-DPMNE says Brvenica is not a test for the coalition and that the government will continue investing in the municipality regardless of which party the mayor comes from. SDSM leader Venko Filipče, for his part, claims the government is using the issue to play the victim.

So: the partner is a Trojan horse, but the coalition is stable. The defeat is an excellent result. And the opposition accused of helping DUI is now accusing the government of playing the victim. Every side in Brvenica has found its own narrative - which of them will deliver the infrastructure that, by Manasievski's own account, residents are expecting?

The new mayor comes from an opposition party in a municipality where the central government promises not to punish it. That promise will be measured in the budget, not in press releases.