Macedonia to hold snap elections

[Gocka]

This is not surprising. I said it weeks ago that the albanians would go all out this time around to try and get an albanian into office. They wont be successful this time around, but I have a feeling that when they are eventually not successful they will turn to violence once again, and at the point anything is possible.

[Vangelovski]

Are 62 seats enough for a party to form a government on their own without entering into a coalition with another party?

61 seats would give you a majority. 120 seats in total. DPMNE has had an outright majority in the past, but still opted for a coalition with Albanians. But what Gruevski is saying about the Albanians being able to seek the position of PM or whatever unless DPMNE gets 62 seats is utter bullshit - they would never have enough seats to form government which is what is needed to take the PM position...or just gutless wankers like DPMNE (even if they had 62 seats they might just give it up).

[Soldier of Macedon]

Ethnic Albanians make up roughly a quarter of the population of Macedonia. Since independence, it has been an unwritten rule that the strongest parties from both ethnic blocs should together form the government.

Are 62 seats enough for a party to form a government on their own without entering into a coalition with another party?

[Vangelovski]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti...-for-elections

Macedonia Parties Mobilize Ethnic Supporters

As elections in April approach, the two main parties in government are mobilizing their own ethnic Macedonian and Albanian electorates in order to strengthen their bargaining positions in the next government.

The junior party in Macedonia's government, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, on Monday called on ethnic Albanians to mobilize to give the DUI more leverage in the next government.

Sounding confident of victory within the ethnic Albanian bloc in the April early elections, the DUI spokesperson, Bujar Osmani, said the party needed at least 25 seats to boost its position in government.
The party currently controls 14 of the 123 seats in the country's assembly.

“These elections will determine who will be more influential in the next government - the [main ruling party] VMRO DPMNE or the DUI - which is why we ask for support from Albanians, so that we can win 25 seats,” Osmani said.

Two days earlier, the Prime Minister and leader of VMRO DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, called on ethnic Macedonians also to mobilize - so that his party is less susceptible to blackmail and pressure from its ethnic Albanian partner, the DUI.

Gruevski, whose party controls just under half of the seats in parliament, on Saturday told a party congress that he needed a working majority of at least 62 seats.

With that number, he added, “no one could blackmail us as a party, as a coalition, as the Macedonian people and nation”, he told his supporters.

He said that the DUI wanted to put VMRO DPMNE in a position whereby they could demand one of the top three posts in the country as a condition for participation in the government.

“If VMRO DPMNE does not win 62 legislators, the DUI could either seek the Prime Minister's position, or that of speaker of parliament, or head of state,” Gruevski explained.

Ethnic Albanians make up roughly a quarter of the population of Macedonia. Since independence, it has been an unwritten rule that the strongest parties from both ethnic blocs should together form the government.

At the weekend, all the main political players agreed that early parliamentary elections should be held on April 27, in tandem with the second round of voting in the presidential election.

The agreement became clear after the DUI submitted an initiative on early elections to parliament on Friday, on the grounds that VMRO DPMNE had ignored its idea for a joint presidential candidate.

However, some opposition parties described the apparent crisis between VMRO DPMNE and the DUI as a fabrication - prearranged between the two of them in order to have an excuse to call early elections.

Both parties have an interest in early elections as recent opinion polls suggest they stand to do well, and so win another four-year term.

For Prime Minister Gruevski, who has held power since 2006, this will be the third time he has challenged the opposition in an early general election.

The last early general elections were held in Macedonia in 2011. Although Gruevski won, the main opposition Social Democrats made a strong showing. At present, VMRO DPMNE hold 56 seats in parliament, the Social Democrats 42, the DUI 14 and the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, eight.

[George S.]

achieved ver little & prolonged our misery.He is offside with the Albanians snap electoions will cost them votes.

[Risto the Great]

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/02/macedonia-hold-snap-elections

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has agreed to early general elections next month after his ruling coalition failed to agree on a presidential candidate.

"For the sake of state and national interest I accept early parliamentary elections to be held" on April 27, Gruevski told a meeting of his VMRO-DPMNE party, paving the way for a possible split with the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI).

The smaller ethnic Albanian party had called for snap polls after rejecting an April 13 re-election bid by President Gjorge Ivanov, the candidate backed by Gruesvski's conservative VMRO-DPMNE.

Local media said parliament will likely be dissolved by Wednesday ahead of the snap elections on April 27, when a presidential run-off would also be held if no winner emerges on April 13.

A voter survey in December showed the ruling party would win 59 of the 123 seats in parliament in early elections, to 36 for the opposition Social Democrats.

Gruevski's cabinet has been in power since June 2011.

Relations between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians have been strained since the end of a seven-month conflict in 2001 that pitted the landlocked Balkan country's armed forces against ethnic Albanian rebels.

Ethnic Albanians make up some 25 per cent of Macedonia's population of two million.