One of the three pillars, in measuring the transparency index, is intra-party democracy, an aspect that is very important, because intra-party democracy results in the degree of democratization of parties and reflects how those parties treat citizens and the public, in general and when opposition, but also when they are in power. The dilemma posed by the research is that parties are generally more inclined to be democratic when they are in opposition than when they are in power, said the deputy president of SDSM, Fani Karanfilova Panovska, at today's panel discussion on transparency of political parties.

Karanfilova Panovska referred to the internal party democracy in SDSM, saying that if the surveys and measurements were done now, they would have slightly different results than those that were done at the time when SDSM lost the elections.

"In November 2024, the long-awaited congress of the SDSM was held at which the executive and central bodies of the party were elected. An open call for self-nominations of presidents of municipal organizations and for president of the city of Skopje has already been announced. Considering that the leader of SDSM was elected by direct, internal party elections, and then followed a period of several months of his consolidation so that he could come up with a strategy on how to establish the further leadership. And in that context, the highest body of the party, the congress, held a session on November 27. At the last 30th congress of the SDSM, where I was elected as the vice-president of the party, a position where the gender balance was taken into account, which showed that the SDSM not only has an awareness and priority for gender equality, but also demonstrates it in practice." , said Karanfilova Panovska.

At the panel discussion, she also referred to the fact that during the selection of the management and members, a lot of attention was paid to several principles, namely the principle that the process should be open and inclusive, behind all these appointments, the people who have come to different positions , were chosen by a broad consensus within the party itself. The second principle was the increasing multi-ethnicity.

"What we will do in order for democratization to gain real meaning in the context of the research, is full communication between the central and municipal organizations. This new leadership of SDSM has a plan and idea that they will establish serious lines of communication between the central leadership and the new leadership that should happen at the level of municipal organizations. With the proposal of the party program, we will organize meetings with all citizens and supporters to see their contribution and ideas that SDSM should deal with in the next 4 years. As a demonstration of democracy and democratization, SDSM will go in the direction of integrating the youth and women who are in the focus, in addition to multi-ethnicity," added Karanfilova-Panovska.

In the area of ​​financial transparency and accessibility to the public, the measurement results in 2024 remain almost identical to those in 2023. SDSM has developed procedures for financial operations and regularly submits reports to the competent state authorities. All financial reports, as well as reports from the last parliamentary and local elections, are published on the website of SDSM.

In the pillar of accessibility to the public, SDSM shows good results identically to the measurement carried out in 2023. This is primarily due to the comprehensive party communication strategy, the diversification of communication channels (FB, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), as well as an official website rich in information and news.