Macedonia's Parliament Expected to Resume Sessions

Acting on the announced demand of the parties that form the new majority in Macedonia's parliament, the current provisional speaker, Trajko Veljanoski, is expected to schedule resumption of the constitutive session in the assembly in the next few days.

"This is the first step we are taking towards unblocking parliament's work," a well-informed Social Democrat source told BIRN under condition of anonymity, adding: "We expect that Veljanovski will set the session as soon as possible."

The initiative comes more than three months after the December 11 elections and some 80 days after parliament first reassembled on December 30.

However, that session was held only to verify MPs' mandates. The session was interrupted because no party or coalition then mustered a majority that could elect a new speaker.

The initiative follows days of talks between the Social Democrats, SDSM, and their ethnic Albanian partners parties over what to do next after the President, Gjorge Ivanov, refused to offer the SDSM leader Zoran Zaev a mandate to form a government. The new majority controls 67 of the 120 seats in parliament.

The name of the new would-be speaker has not been revealed. Unofficially, a proposal is expected to come from the ranks of the leading ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.

DUI leader Ali Ahmeti on Wednesday divulged some elements of the strategy he had discussed with the SDSM head, Zaev.

"All efforts are being put towards getting the parliament back to work and electing the parliamentary bodies. Then the [new] speaker should file an official request to the President to award a mandate for [forming] a new government," Ahmeti said.

The SDSM on Thursday again called on the...