Zaev's Government Divided

Recognisors of political developments say Macedonia faces a major challenge as a state, that of unblocking the process of integration into the North-Atlantic Alliance and the European Union, and there is no place for ruling coalition partners to challenge each other politically.

These comments come after the Alliance for Albanians leader Zijadin Sela's warning that he will leave the government shortly after the Law on Use of Languages, which is expected to be voted in the Assembly in January.

The Sela has indicated that Macedonia's prime minister, Zoran Zaev, has violated the agreement on forming the reformist government, unfairly taking over his party, the Health Ministry.

For Zaev's Government, Sela has said it is a “lavaric” for cleaning up coalition partners' corrupt relatives.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, ahead of the health minister's vote by the Social Democrats, Venko Filipce, said that bids for the Alliance for Albanians are still open for deputy prime minister to implement reforms.

Despite the warning that he will leave the government, the Alliance's leader for Albanians, Sela, has indicated he will not seek early elections. He has even said he will back laws dealing with reforms demanded by the international factor.

“2018 is a very important year for Macedonia to unblock Euro-integration processes and Macedonia as soon as it becomes a NATO member. We will reject our party interest, which is the election as soon as possible in order to confront the Democratic Union for Integration”, Sela has said, REL reports.

Albert Musliu from the Institute for Democracy Development for Radio Free Europe says it is incompatible the fact that the Zaev government even saw the Alliance for Albanians has a majority, but in this direction should not overlook the international factor's orders, which are more than clear, that all political actors should demonstrate responsibility for obligations clearly defined by the international factor.

I think even the request of all citizens is that they (the political parties' leaders) harmonise attitudes. The citizens' trust has been taken thanks to the promise to implement reforms, the pledge to release the seized state, as well as the intention to unblock the country's integration process in Euro-Atlantic structures. Now all parties include here and the international factor encourage political representatives to find compromise”, Musliu says.

Meanwhile, former head of Macedonia's Parliament Tito Petkovski considers that clashes between government coalition partners cause a bad climate against the list of obligations Macedonia has received as the precise obligation to realise at a certain time.

The entire “contributes to the creation of a bad political climate in the state, if I can express myself that way, before those key steps for which the government has publicly pledged on the international plan as pledge for next year” are realised, Petkovski underscores.

Otherwise, Macedonia's health dictatorship for more than two months was empty, following the resignation of then-Head Taravari, who resigned after being put in the election race for the Gostivar Community, where he managed to get the trust of citizens in this municipality.

The Alliance for Albanians remained in the position that this dictatorship belongs to this party, while Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has declared that managing this dictatorship had given the Alliance, due to the candidate offered at the time, Arben Taravari.

Alliance deputies' votes for Albanians were crucial to forming the government by Zoran Zaev, but circumstances changed after two MPs seeing part of the VMRO-led coalition. Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's DPMNE passed as independent deputies, declaring they would support Zaev's reformist government.