Skopje, 10 November 2021 (MIA) – President Stevo Pendarovski has said that the announced resignation of Prime Minister and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev caught the international community by surprise, because he was seen as a rather positive example in recent years. “I had brief meetings, I wouldn’t call them discussions, but the German Chancellor asked me on several occasions about the motives for the resignation and whether I think this was the right move. My answer was, and I told Zaev this upon my return, ‘of course not’. Because of the loss of two, three, five, ten municipalities, because of a loss at local elections, irrespective of what you had promised before, this is another level in politics. You are leading a country. You have a four-year, legitimate mandate and you cannot say halfway ‘I am leaving because of Skopje, Prilep or Kumanovo,” President Pendarovski told TV21. He was asked the same question by others, including the NATO Secretary-General. “The NATO Secretary-General asked me, out of his Scandinavian character, the same question on a couple of occasions. I told him, ‘It is best you talk to Zaev directly’. Therefore, the international community was caught by surprise, because you know that Zaev has been rather positively accepted by the entire international community in recent years,” notes Pendarovski.