Before the parliamentary elections were held, on May 8, VMRO DPMNE declared itself the winner of these elections, while it has already determined the parties that will be part of the new government.
Based on the results of the first round of presidential elections, on April 24, which made VMRO’s candidate for president, Gordana Silanovska-Davkova, the absolute winner, the leader of the Macedonian opposition, Hristijan Mickoski, has said that the party he leads will be a double winner of the elections on May 8.
He has said in all party gatherings and appearances before the media that the new government will be formed by VMRO DPMNE and the VLEN coalition, which consists of Albanian opposition parties.
In the elections of April 24, the Albanian opposition coalition with 83,000 votes won was ranked behind the Democratic Union for Integration (BDI) which received 121,000 votes, but despite this, Mickoski said that the BDI will move to the opposition.
According to him, there will be no place in the government for “people involved in crime and corruption”, who, as Mickoski said, will answer for all corrupt affairs after May 8.
“For VMRO DPMNE, the positions and determinations are very clear. I don’t want to talk to the emissaries that [Ali Ahmeti] sends every day for a coalition with VMRO DPMNE. The DUI for me is a finished chapter and will go to the opposition”, declared Mickoski.
He also accused DUI of “hypocrisy” that on the one hand it acts patriotism, while on the other hand it sends “emissaries” to become part of the new government, according to Mickoski.
Meanwhile, representatives of the VLEN coalition have also said that they will be part of the new government and have even come out with the positions they will have in the next government.
They have said that they are “legitimate representatives of Albanians” in contrast to DUI, which, according to the opposition coalition, participated in the election in a coalition with five parties from other ethnic communities.
“Being the only contestants in the Albanian political camp and, of course, winners of this block, we are also the only and legitimate representatives of Albanians in these elections. Consequently, this obliges us to represent the Albanians in the next government, where – among others – we will lead important institutions of Internal Affairs, who are responsible for sanctioning crime and corruption, in order to fight strongly and directly the long-standing crime and corruption”, stated Afrim Gashi, one of the leaders of the VLEN coalition,” writes Radio Free Europe.
From the Democratic Union for Integration, in the presentations before the media, they remain in the position that the participation of a party in the government is not determined by Mickoski, but by the voters in the elections.
The head of DUI, Ali Ahmeti, has instructed the representatives of the VLEN coalition not to make the mistake, which, according to him, the Albanian Democratic Party (PDSH) of Menduh Thaçi had made in 2006 when he entered the government without the votes of the Albanian electorate.
“The Albanian opposition would do well not to make the mistakes that my former colleague made. In 2006, a mistake was made and the then party [PDSH] paid the cost”, Ahmeti declared.
In North Macedonia until 2017 there was an unwritten rule that governments were formed by the winning Albanian and Macedonian parties, regardless of their program orientations.
The Democratic Union for Integration, as the winner of the Albanian elections, was part of the Government, both with the SDSM and VMRO DPMNE, which won the elections among the Macedonian electorate.
This rule continued until 2017 when the Government was formed by SDSM even though it had lost the elections to the Macedonian electorate.
So it managed to form the parliamentary majority with the votes of the Albanian parties and form the Government by removing from power the VMRO DPMNE-led by Nikola Gruevski.
After that, VMRO DPMNE has announced several times that the “winner with winner” rule will no longer apply.
