Not even the greatest optimists in the opposition bloc led by the VMRO DPMNE party could have predicted the scope of their victory at the first round of presidential election in April 24.

While expecting to come out ahead, their presidential candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova exceeded all expectations, winning over 40 per cent of the votes – a total of 362,000.

Her score was double that of the incumbent President Stevo Pendarovski, who won just under 20 per cent, around 180,000 votes, scoring the worst-ever presidential election result for the ruling Social Democrats who endorsed him.

The consensus among observers is that Pendarovski simply paid the price for the deep dissatisfaction among voters about the Social Democrats, a pro-European force that has been in power since mid-2017 but has simply failed to deliver on many fronts.