Resignations Rock Macedonia's Junior Ruling Party

Labenishta tendered his resignation at the weekend from the junior ruling party, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, together with the party's longstanding organisational secretary Hazbi Lika and Shefik Duraki, the head of the DUI's branch in the village of Arcinovo near Skopje.

Labenishta is the first person to quit the cabinet since a political crisis erupted in the country in February, sparked by the scandal over mass illegal surveillance which was revealed by the opposition.

In his written resignation, Labenishta accused his party leadership of spreading demagogy and being servile towards the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who has been in power for nine years.

He demanded that someone be held responsible for the mass wiretapping and said he was unhappy about the way his party had reacted at a time when the country was struck by a political crisis.

"Uncivilised people, an uneducated democracy and the lack of any ethical and moral capacity creates chaos, exploitation and discouragement, [which creates a] residue that will cover all our efforts for [improvement] of our national and social life," Labenishta wrote in the letter.

The opposition Social Democrats started releasing the tapes of government conversations in February. They claim that Gruevski orchestrated the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people and that the material comes from sources in the Macedonian secret services.

Gruevski has thus far insisted that the tapes were created by unnamed "foreign secret services" in collaboration with the opposition in order to destabilise the country.

Responding to the resignations, DUI leader Ali Ahmeti said that his party was not "a circus for...