On November 2, 2025, North Macedonia's ruling conservatives cemented their victory in a local election runoff, winning just over two-thirds of the mayoral contests across both rounds and leaving the opposition Social Democrats far behind. The scale of the win was enough to frustrate hopes that the vote might trigger an early general election.
According to the State electoral commission, with nearly 99 percent of ballots counted for both rounds, the conservative VMRO-DPMNE had won 55 mayoral contests, including the capital Skopje, while the Social Democrats had only six. North Macedonia has 81 municipalities, and 37 were contested in the runoff. In the first round two weeks earlier, conservatives had already won 33 of 44 contests decided then, putting the party in control well before the final count.
Party leader Hristijan Mickoski called the result a great victory and told supporters that the country was theirs again. The Social Democrats' leader, Venko Filipche, said the election results were a roadmap for the party but rejected calls to resign. Those reactions suggest the runoff was not only a local administrative contest but also a referendum on political momentum at the national level.
In Skopje, campaign issues such as jobs, education and the economy were overshadowed by a practical crisis: trash collection. The AP report said garbage had piled up for weeks because of operational and financial problems at the city's waste company. The buildup attracted rats, flies and stray animals, and one child had recently been bitten by a rat. On election day, however, the city looked unusually clean, which itself became a striking backdrop to the political result.
Turnout was 41.47 percent, lower than the 46.48 percent recorded in the first round, showing that the runoff did not mobilize the broader electorate any more strongly than the opening vote did. More than 1 million people were eligible to vote. For the conservatives, the result reinforced the sense of control they have built in local government. For the opposition, it left the party with few municipal footholds and no early-election momentum.
The evidence packet supports a straightforward interpretation: VMRO-DPMNE won decisively, the opposition was trounced and Skopje fell into the conservative column. The result matters not because it changed the country's constitutional architecture, but because it exposed how weak the Social Democrats had become and how thoroughly the ruling party had translated local grievances into a broad political advantage.
The runoff also highlighted how much local service failures can shape national politics in North Macedonia. Garbage collection is not usually the issue that decides a big political contest, yet in Skopje it became a visible sign of municipal dysfunction and a symbol that the ruling party could exploit. The result gives VMRO-DPMNE a stronger local base and leaves the Social Democrats with a much smaller foothold in city halls. That matters because municipal control can shape public trust, service delivery and party momentum long before the next parliamentary race. The turnout gap suggests that enthusiasm was not especially deep, but it was deep enough for the ruling party to convert local frustration into a clear mandate.
