VMRO DPMNE party

As the North Macedonian parliamentary commission starts work this week on drafting important but controversial change designed to satisfy neighbouring Bulgaria, opposition parties have cried foul, insisting that the experts nominated in it lack credibility, as they are close to the ruling parties.

North Macedonia's Justice Minister, Krenar Loga, told Monday's briefing with reporters in Skopje that his country would renew efforts to extradite former PM Nikola Gruevski who fled to Hungary to avoid a jail term.

Sinking Deeper

Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev arrives for a face-to-face EU summit in Brussels, Belgium, 25 May 2021. European Union leaders take part in a two day in-person meeting to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and Russia relations. EPA-EFE/JOHANNA GERON / POOL

A court verdict against its former leader puts North Macedonia's main opposition VMRO DPMNE party at risk of losing its luxury HQ in the capital plus a total of 34 properties across the country.

North Macedonian police said they arrested a person who held a handgun and fired shots in the air at Thursday night's protest against the acceptance of a French proposal aimed at unclogging North Macedonia's stalled EU accession talks.

Nikola Gruevski, who was tried in absentia, was found guilty at Skopje Criminal Court on Thursday of unlawfully acquiring over 1.3 million euros from his former ruling VMRO DPMNE party, and of instigating a money-laundering scheme to cover his tracks and buy property with the proceeds.

The traditional pruning of the vineyards near the south-eastern town of Kavadarci for St. Tryphon's Day on Monday turned sour when the Bishop Agatangel of the Macedonian Orthodox Church called in his sermon for the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party to return to power.

North Macedonia's Social Democratic PM Zoran Zaev late Tuesday postponed his announced resignation indefinitely, to try to sustain the current fragile majority in parliament and get the country out of its political crisis.

All of this while back in Gruevski's home country, things are in flux as well. Gruevski's conservative VMRO DPMNE party, which under his rule was widely accused of "capturing the state institutions" including the judiciary, is now in a serious position to take on the pro-European Social Democratic leader Zoran Zaev, who toppled Gruevski back in 2017.

As the political fight to form a new majority escalates ahead of a no-confidence vote, due on Thursday, each MP in North Macedonia's various ethnic Albanian parties feels a kingmaker.