Bilal Kasami

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.

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.

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 government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has secured the parliamentary majority required to finalize the four constitutional amendments that will change the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to North Macedonia, a ruling party spokesman cited by MIA news agency reported on Friday.

Talks aimed at broadening support in parliament for Zoran Zaev's fragile government in Macedonia have entered their final phase, and the outcome should be known within the next few days or next week.

A feud between two opposing camps inside the small ethnic Albanian BESA party has created another headache for the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who would like to see all the party's five MPs in his government, boosting its wafer-thin majority.

Up to ten MPs from smaller ethnic Albanian parties could soon boost the government's narrow majority in parliament, but settling their petty feuds so that they can all join his administration poses a challenge for Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

A growing rift inside the BESA party in Macedonia has resulted this week in two rival party congresses being set for February 24 - with each side insisting it has the right to lead the party.

Macedonia urgently needs a new government to conduct reforms, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn has said.

Beta is reporting that Hahn posted this on Twitter after his meeting in Skopje on Tuesday with leader of the ethnic Albanian Besa Movement Bilal Kasami.

Representatives of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian parties on Saturday in Skopje signed a joint declaration that will serve as a platform for their furture participation in any government that is formed following the December 11 general election.