According to all announcements, today before the Central and Executive Board of SDSM the president of the ruling party will resign. This will activate the statutory procedure for electing a new president - and the newly elected he / she nominates the other senior officials in the party, and additionally votes the Central Board there. As it is known, after the changes last year, the election of the next leader of SDSM will be conducted by general voting of all members of this party, with direct election for one of those who will run. And that (revolutionary, and unique, for our circumstances) democratic opportunity was introduced by Zaev, who is now voluntarily resigning.

All the lamentations and rumors about Zaev's decision to resign are already well known and not worth re-analyzing. And that - the resignations after the lost, even local, elections - include Zaev in the rare variety of Macedonian politicians, from now until the "end of history". As the years go by, all the current controversies, petty bourgeois squabbles, inter-party malice and general hate speech will be forgotten, and Zaev's place, in an objectified historical role assessed from the required time distance, I tend to think he will only gain higher quality, not vice versa. Whatever you think of him, the man, de facto, "personally" raised the "bar" at least in the discussion of leadership much higher than the depressing average of local politics.

When a remarkable leader leaves any national political scene (Blair, Merkel, Obama, etc. come to mind, although I already anticipate the scathing comments because of this comparison of the former Strumica mayor with these world leaders!), The question of who will succeed them exceeds the intra-party analysis of the "number of shoes" that the newly elected leader of the Social Democrats will have to fill.

The essence of the Macedonian multiethnic, multicultural, complicated international context, but also internal political coalition system of government presupposes party leaders with greater socio-political knowledge, rather than business-management qualities. Here and in the foreseeable future, the proposals for flat or progressive tax rates, the speed of "digitalization" of society or even the rate of projected economic growth will not decide who will come to power, but the sense of the "middle way" by which the state and the skill to make political and personnel compromises between the various, realistically possible, partners in government can move. Blocking the country's European integration perspective only further emphasizes that approach in our policy.

These circumstances should be the focus of the "balance of power" among the party candidates ambitious to succeed Zaev. It is also superfluous to discuss other important and understandable characteristics of the new leader, such as those from the register of anti-corruption or personal professional experience and qualifications.

But SDSM, like all major parties, has its own intra-party personnel "kitchens" and lobbies, various currents whose political and material interests are tied to the profile and personality of the leader. Not only among the political opponents in other parties, but also among the Social Democrats themselves, there are important circles and individuals who feel like losers, on various grounds, in Zaev's eight-year party presidency. Moreover, the party is (still) in power, and the assumption is that the new party leader will be the next prime minister-designate.

Whoever you talk to these days, even unofficially, everyone is quite restrained in mentioning the names of Zaev's possible successor. At the moment, it is not possible to identify a person who has a real "advantage" in the presumed candidacies, even among Zaev's closest associates. It is useless, at least for another day, to mention specific names, because everyone chooses public restraint and a certain "selling fog" when asked about their personal leadership ambitions.

However, the collective characteristic of the names circulating in the "bazaar" is that they are relatively young people, almost all men, mostly lawyers or business managers, without too much political experience in at least two or three important social areas - their individual "sectoral" qualities and even mental capacities are not disputed; The problem is that their weaknesses for conducting comprehensive policy cannot be assessed in advance according to the socio-political formula necessary for running the country.

But in politics, as in all other spheres of life, successful leaders are more the result of personal character and moral integrity than of expertise in a particular field of work. The expertise can be supplemented with the quality of the selected circle of collaborators, and the lack of character has no replacement.

Maybe this is the top criterion according to which the party voters in SDSM will have to be guided when, soon, they will vote for their new leader. In fact, even Zaev did not have dazzling expert qualifications, so in extremely complicated political and historical circumstances, as a result of his strong character, he achieved more than everyone hoped. The same goes for Gruevski, whatever you think of him. Even with Mickoski, the great effort in recent months to present his character in a different light from the one we are used to in the years before is obvious.

No worries, the hunt for "mobile leadership targets" in SDSM will be open this week, with names and surnames, in all its color and ruthlessness as befits the Macedonian political and political community. The fun is guaranteed at least as long as the result is uncertain.