Macedonia's Gruevski Vows to Win Early Elections

Prime Minister Gruevski said that at Tuesday's marathon talks in Skopje mediated by EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, he accepted snap polls in order "to end the agony in which the opposition has put Macedonia".

Speaking to Sitel TV, the Prime Minister, now under intense pressure to resign, said he expected to win the elections and believes "the people will defeat the destructive policies of the opposition".

His centre-right VMRO DPMNE party "will celebrate a convincing victory", he predicted.

He said he was only sorry that ever since he took power in 2006, he has not been able to complete a four-year term without going to early elections.

Gruevski has made it a practice to opt for snap elections roughly every two years, a tactics that many observers say is designed to catch the opposition unprepared.

The Prime Minister made his concession on the elections amid a deep political crisis over claims of mass illegal surveillance.

On Tuesday, Commissioner Hahn said he had extracted an agreement from politicians for a "transition" period leading up to snap elections that must take place by next April.

The details are to be discussed at the new talks in Brussels on Wednesday June 10. The key question is whether Gruevski will step down during this period and who will be in charge in the "transition" before the elections.

The opposition has demanded an interim period in which the electoral roll is completely checked and electoral flaws addressed.

Gruevski has insisted that compromising tapes of officials' conversations, which the oppostion has released in batches since February, were "created" by unnamed foreign intelligence services and given to the opposition to destabilise the country....