VMRO DPMNE party

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.

North Macedonia's main opposition VMRO DPMNE party on Monday filed a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, sticking to its promise to do so unless Zaev resigned by the 2.30pm ultimatum it gave him.

The MP and VMRO DPMNE vice-president Aleksandar Nikolovski confirmed this at a press conference in Skopje.

Opposition leader Hirstijan Mickoski's right-wing VMRO DPMNE party, their Albanian coalition partners Alliance for Albanians and Alternative, alongside the small opposition Levica party, and the ethnic Albanian BESA party, who has just defected from the current government ranks, came together to form a new majority in North Macedonia's parliament.

In an address late on Sunday evening, Zoran Zaev said he is resigning from his position as North Macedonia's Prime Minister and as leader of the Social Democrats, after the party's defeat in the capital of Skopje and other important towns to the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party during the election runoffs this weekend.

The results of the municipal polls have brought the governing Social Democrats' arch-rivals in the right-wing VMRO DPMNE party back into the game - and closer to possibly forming a new government.