Albanian party

Portals under the Tetova-sot media group. Illustration: BIRN

Party affiliate reaps rewards of weak system

Rami Mislimi works in the mainly ethnic Albanian Municipality of Tetovo and at the same time pushes his journalistic career through the portal tetovasot.com.

The issue of several ethnically charged court cases that has dogged multi-ethnic North Macedonia for years reemerged on Sunday, when the Prime Minister and Social Democratic leader, Zoran Zaev, signed a coalition deal with a small ethnic Albanian party to boost the government's slim majority.

The news states that these are not new demands or blackmail, but demands that arise from signed agreements that Pristina has been obstructing or refusing to fulfill for years.

Boiling Point

Montenegrin parliament speaker Aleksa Becic (left) and Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic. Photo: Government of Montenegro

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, North Macedonia this year decided against holding a traditional banquet to commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the historic 2001 Ohrid Peace Accord which ended a short-lived conflict that year by granting more rights to the country's ethnic Albanians.

Heating Up

The junior ruling ethnic Albanian party in North Macedonia has reacted with dismay to the announcement of a new election alliance between its senior partner and another ethnic Albanian party.

A senior official from the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said the new agreement between the Social Democrats and BESA would only damage the Albanian vote in the April general elections.

The group of ethnic Albanians appeared in court as they have been granted a retrial by the North Macedonia judicial authorities.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) was struggling Thursday to get the required number of lawmakers to finalize constitutional changes that will rename the country "Republic of North Macedonia" and allow its NATO accession under a deal with neighboring Greece.

Two small ethnic Albanian opposition parties in Macedonia, the BESA movement and the Alliance for Albanians, insist that the changing of the constitution to implement the 'name' agreement with Greece is a good opportunity for additional changes that would improve the status of Albanians in the country.