The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia was established on 20 April 1991. Its roots can be traced to 1943 upon the formation of the Communist Party of Macedonia (CPM) during World War II in the
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. The CPM became the
League of Communists of Macedonia (LCM) in 1952 and was the ruling party of the
Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
Branko Crvenkovski was elected as the president and Nikola Popovski was elected as the vice president of the party. It retained the resources and the organisation of its predecessor. Unlike its rival VMRO-DPMNE, the party has traditionally had support from the urban middle-classes, the former Yugoslav managerial elite and the former
nomenklatura. It formed the first political government in 1992. SDSM experienced its first major split when
Petar Gošev established the
Democratic Party in 1993. The party formed a coalition government with the ethnic Albanian
Party for Democratic Prosperity. The party's president Crvenkovski served as the prime minister of Macedonia from 1992 to 1998. Per political scientists
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, its rule in the 1990s was
competitive authoritarian as the government harassed opposition activists and "tightly control[led] public and certain private media." State television and radio monopolised national broadcasting. Managers, supported by SDSM, bankrupted companies and took the revenues, resulting in the loss of jobs. During 1997 and the first half of 1998, Crvenkovski and his governing centre-left coalition were criticised by the public due to the high unemployment rates (42 per cent in 1997 and 41 per cent in 1998), rampant corruption, insider privatisation, dysfunctionally high levels of taxation, failure to attract foreign investment, and the slow pace of reforms aimed at giving ethnic Albanians, Turks, and Roma people equal status with ethnic Macedonians. The party lost the
1998 elections. In 2001, SDSM was part of the short-lived government of national unity during the
2001 insurgency in Macedonia, which also consisted of VMRO-DPMNE, Party for Democratic Prosperity and
Democratic Party of Albanians. After the
2002 Macedonian parliamentary election, the party became the biggest party, winning 60 out of 120 seats in the
Assembly of Macedonia as the largest party of the Together for Macedonia alliance, which it co-led with the
Liberal Democratic Party. After the electoral defeat, Šekerinska resigned and was succeeded by a mayor of
Strumica,
Zoran Zaev. but resigned after the party's defeat in the
2013 local elections. In June 2013, Zaev was elected as the leader. In the elections on 11 December 2016, the party won almost 440,000 votes and 49 MPs which was the second-best result in SDSM's history, after the result from 2002. In April 2017, SDSM formed a coalition with the Albanian parties (Democratic Union for Integration, Besa, and Alliance for Albanians) and in the next month, it formed a government. The party won 57 municipalities in the local elections in October. During the government's rule, North Macedonia joined
NATO and agreements with Bulgaria and Greece were also signed, with the latter resolving the
Macedonia naming dispute. Before the 2020 parliamentary elections, the party rebranded, changing its logo to be similar to other European social democratic parties, and changing its primary colour to red. In the elections, it campaigned for continuing to pursue membership in the EU. It created a government in August after winning 46 seats. On 12 December 2021, the party's internal leadership elections were held and the former deputy Finance Minister, Dimitar Kovačevski, was elected as the party's president and he became the prime minister in January 2022. On 30 June, the former health minister of North Macedonia,
Venko Filipče, became the party's president. == Party leaders ==