Trifun Kostovski, former mayor of Skopje (2005-2009) and former SDSM MP, has announced a new political party. He posted the news on his Facebook page, with a call to citizens of all ages. "I am calling on all my fellow citizens, experienced and inexperienced, who have the desire for Macedonia to survive as a state in which we create a future for our generations."

Kostovski, a businessman, insists the new party will not be "an instrument for personal power". "I am not seeking power for myself," he wrote, "but an opportunity for an awakening at the state level." The party will carry no "national or religious markers" - a phrasing that in the Macedonian political context means a neutral tone vis-à-vis the dominant political fault lines.

"Macedonia at a Crossroads - Time to Renew Ourselves as a State" - that is the title of the column in which he plans to lay out his motives. The questions every observer of the political scene is asking are familiar: what electorate is he targeting? Is it the half of former SDSM voters who no longer know where to go? Or something else - a business elite that wants neither VMRO-DPMNE nor SDSM?

Kostovski has two challenges. The first - a real party structure, not just a Facebook post. Without local committees, without membership, without a budget, every new party dies at the first election. The second challenge is bigger: the costs of running a party. The Macedonian political scene is full of ad-hoc parties that appear before each election and disappear after it. If Kostovski wants to be the new "third option", he has to show that his party will still exist in five years. Until then, every announcement will be interesting, but not credible.