SKOPJE: Macedonia is set to call early parliamentary elections in a bid to end a political deadlock sparked by the two main ruling coalition members’ failure to agree on a candidate for the upcoming presidential vote, officials said yesterday.
The ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), a junior coalition member, was angered by its larger partner VMRO-DPMNE’s decision to nominate current president Gjorge Ivanov as its candidate. DUI argued Ivanov, who would run for a second term, was not “consensual” candidate acceptable to both Albanians and Macedonians, who are ethnic Slavs.
It filed a motion yesterday to dissolve parliament which is expected to be debated by MPs next week. Conservative Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE party accepted the challenge and it was ready for an early vote.
“We accept the glove thrown down by DUI and we are going on early parliamentary elections,” Gruevski told his supporters at the VMRO-DPMNE presidential convention on Saturday.
VMRO-DPMNE is the single strongest party in parliament and enjoys high popularity among Macedonians. Together with DUI they have enough votes to pass the motion for an early vote.
Reuters
