Although the official results of the local elections are not yet known, Zaev conceded defeat in the most important contest – the race for mayor of the capital, Skopje, with incumbent President Petre Shilegov losing to a challenger center-right, Danela Arsovska. Arsovska will become the capital’s very first female mayor.

Candidates backed by the main opposition party, the center-right VMRO-DPMNE, appeared poised to win at least half of the country’s 80 municipalities, with the Social Democrats expected to win less than 20. In the last elections municipal elections, in 2017, the Social Democrats won 57 competitions and the VMRO-DPMNE only five.

The official results were expected on Monday.

Zaev spoke out against the early national elections, saying he would support a government led by the Social Democrats led by a new leader.

Hristijan Mickoski, leader of the main center-right opposition party VMRO-DPMNE, called for early parliamentary elections.

“The ruling party is now delegitimized, and this is a new reality. The best way now is early elections, ”said Mickoski, after declaring victory in the local elections.

The last national election was held in July 2020 and a new one should not take place before 2024. But everything will now depend on the country’s parliament.

Under the country’s constitution, parliament must vote to accept Zaev’s resignation, and that’s not a given. The ruling coalition has a slim majority, with 62 seats in the 120-seat Parliament – 46 from the Social Democrat-led “We Can” coalition made up of 23 parties, 15 belonging to the country’s largest ethnic Albanian party. and one from the Democratic Party. of the Albanians.

The VMRO-DPMNE leads the “Renewal” coalition of small allied parties, which has 44 seats, while the Alliance of Albanians has 12 and the fiercely leftist and nationalist left party has two seats.

If Parliament accepts Zaev’s resignation, negotiations would begin to form a new cabinet headed by another Social Democratic leader and this could continue.

This is the first time in North Macedonia’s 30-year history that a prime minister has resigned after a defeat in local elections.

During his first term, which lasted from 2017 to 2020, Zaev resolved a long-standing dispute with Greece over the country’s name. Greece said that the original name of “Republic of Macedonia” and certain clauses of the country’s constitution implied territorial claims on Greece’s northern province, Macedonia.

Under the agreement reached with the then left-wing Greek government in June 2018, the country changed its name to “North Macedonia” – although its citizens are referred to as “Macedonians” – and amended its constitution to exchange of Greek support for the country’s efforts to join the European Union and NATO. North Macedonia became NATO’s 30th member in March 2020.

The center-right New Democracy party, currently in power in Greece, which opposed the agreement with North Macedonia, has pledged to respect it, but the VMRO-DPMNE still opposes it firmly.

While in power earlier, the VMRO-DPMNE claimed supposed ties to the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia and erected a giant statue of Alexander the Great in the capital of Skopje, even though ethnic Macedonians are Slavs who are descendants of people who came to the region centuries after Alexander. .

Zaev’s government and the recently defeated mayor of Skopje shot down the statue and other ancient Macedonian symbols.

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Associated Press writer Demetris Nellas in Athens, Greece contributed to this report.