Albanian Party Pulls out of Macedonia Govt

Macedonia's ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said it was pulling its ministers from the provisional government and giving its head, Ali Ahmeti, authority to decide the next steps.

The DUI MP and Ahmeti's cabinet chief, Artan Grubi, declined to explain the motives for the surprise move to NOVA TV on Friday but said a written statement by the party "in which it will explain the motives for leaving the government" would soon follow.

Unofficially, DUI sources told BIRN that one factor was the publication of wiretapped private conversations on social networks, allegedly containing the voices of prominent DUI officials, which the DUI fears will damage its reputation before the June elections.

"We do not understand why the institutions obliged to investigate people who publish such private conversations have remained silent," one senior DUI source complained to BIRN.

The main opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, last February started releasing batches of covertly recorded tapes, which they say show the government of Nikola Gruevski illegaly wiretapped more than 20,000 people over several years.

However, the party said that it did not publish the new tapes in question.

"All [wiretapped materials] that the SDSM possessed have been handed to the Special Prosecution," the Social Democrats said, referring to the body set up to investigate the wiretapping claims.

The DUI resignations come only one week before parliament is due to dissolve on April 7 ahead of early elections set for June 5.

Pro-government media portrayed the DUI move as done in cooperation with the main ruling VMRO DPMNE, to ensure the June 5 election date, which Gruevski insists on, is adhered to.

The two parties...