SkopjeDiem Macedonia in English
On Sunday, PM Hristijan Mickoski said that he would most likely hold a meeting the following day (Monday, 5 May) with Health Minister Arben Taravari, head of one of the two Alliance for Albanians’ wings, over the latter’s further functioning within the cabinet and potential joint participation with DUI in the local elections.
“There will be such a meeting next week. I think it will be tomorrow. I need to look at the schedule, but I think it will be held tomorrow. At the meeting, I want to clearly hear a stand on whether it’s true that there is a deal between Taravari’s party and DUI that in at least five or six municipalities, I wouldn’t want to speculate on the names, where he will have mayoral candidates, DUI will not have ones, which, first, represents, self-humiliation, as a political party, and, second, that it will support him. To me, as the PM, that’s unacceptable”, he underlined.
As fellow Government members, Mickoski and Taravari communicate on a daily basis, the former also stated. Regarding the preparations of his party, VMRO-DPMNE, for the local elections, Mickoski stated that the names of mayoral candidates would be presented before the Executive Committee in the second half of May.
When it comes to Ali Ahmeti’s comments on the issues concerning ex-Economy Minister Kreshnik Bekteshi and the Kocani fire, protests, and early parliamentary elections, the PM said that if the DUI leader was wise, as he presented himself to be, he would draw a moral, make structural, programme, and staff changes within this party, and participate in elections with a new programme and new persons.
Mickoski stated that his advice for the DUI leader was to look into the future instead of living in the past. In response, DUI said it was concerned by Mickoski’s attempts to impose himself as a tutor in the ethnic Albanian political scene.
“Nobody, least of all Mickoski, a politician who’s built his career on hate and nationalism, has the moral and political legitimacy to design the Albanian political presentation”, it pointed out.
Also on Sunday, Democratic Union, too, voiced a stand on the matter, saying it condemned the “destabilisation threats” and called on relevant organs to take resolute actions to prevent a security-political crisis like the one DUI was intending to cause.
“DUI has persistently refused to accept that its heads and ex-state officials that, with impunity, would break the laws while they were in power the past 20 years are no longer untouchable NLA commanders to whom justice doesn’t apply”, Pavle Trajanov’s party said.
