VMRO DPMNE party

The former speaker of parliament in North Macedonia, Trajko Veljanoski, faces trial together with former transport minister Mile Janakieski, former education minister Spiro Risteski and former secret police chief Vladimir Atanasovski, after the Skopje Criminal Court on Thursday said it had accepted the charges pressed against them.

After his caretaker cabinet was approved on Friday, Oliver Spasovski - who has taken over as acting Prime Minister of North Macedonia - says he is up to "meeting citizens' expectations" and ensuring the April 12 early general elections pass off without a major hitch.

The formation of North Macedonia's caretaker government, tasked with ensuring democratic early general elections on April 12, has encountered new complications after the opposition VMRO DPMNE party proposed an army lieutenant-colonel, Dragan Kovacki, as caretaker interior minister.

One of them is the expected verdict in the high-profile case codenamed 'Monster', which deals with the gruesome killing of five ethnic Macedonians in 2012 during Orthodox Easter near Skopje, in which ethnic Albanians are on trial.

The Prime Minister and head of the main ruling Social Democratic Party, Zoran Zaev, and the head of the main opposition VMRO DPMNE party, Hristijan Mickoski, were expected to strike a final deal at the weekend on the formation of a so-called technical government in January, 100 days ahead of the April 12 early elections.

Parliament in North Macedonia on Sunday passed the budget for 2020, which the government insisted emphases investments in "human capital" through salary increases, while the opposition claimed it was no more than a "bribe" ahead of snap elections due in April.

In what looked like a closely coordinated move, the junior partner in the coalition government in North Macedonia, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, and the main opposition VMRO DPMNE party, on Thursday submitted thousands of amendments to the proposed change to the electoral law.

As speculation grows in North Macedonia about possible early elections as early as spring next year, the main ruling Social Democrats, SDSM, and the main right-wing opposition VMRO DPMNE party, insist their recently launched campaigns across the country are just part of their routine activities.

The private national TV station 1TV ceased airing its signal on Wednesday, unofficially due to major financial problems that have piled up since its informal chief, Bojan Jovanovski, known by the stage name Boki 13, was arrested late in July.

The TV station's main entrance on Friday was padlocked and its frequency blank, although its web page stayed active.

North Macedonia's outgoing chief Special Prosecutor, Katica Janeva, who was detained in August 21 as a suspect in the high-profile "Extortion" affair, has been criticised for sending a letter to her colleagues demanding that all their cases be transferred to the regular prosecutor's office.