Career
He is also mayor of the Strumica Municipality, re-elected in the 2013 local elections. He was elected as president of SDSM by receiving the majority of votes in the 14th Macedonian Social Democratic Congress, held on 2 June 2013. On 1 September 2008 he was placed in the position of vice president of the party.
In the 2009 local elections Zaev was elected for his second mandate as mayor of Strumica.
In 2013, after Branko Crvenkovski stepped down from the leader"s position in SDSM, Zaev was elected as the party"s president On 31 January 2015, Zaev was charged with "conspiring with a foreign intelligence service to topple the government", and a foreign diplomat was also allegedly involved in the alleged attempted coup d"état.
In February 2015, Zaev accused Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski of wiretapping and illegally spying on at least 20,000 people. The government, on the other hand, accused Zaev of blackmailing Gruevski and detained five people in connection with that case.
Zoran Zaev as main opposition leader took part in a meeting on June 2, 2015 with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and European Union enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, in order to overcome a deep political crisis since January 2015.
The political leaders agreed to hold early elections on June 5, 2016.