TIRANA – The Social Democratic leader (SDSM) leader Zoran Zaev said after becoming PM-designate to form a new government on Thursday that he was confident he would manage to form a cabinet within the deadline regulated under the Constitution.
He has a 20-day deadline to form the government, and in case of eventual failure such a mandate is given to VMRO-DPMNE. “I will manage to form a government,” said a confident Zaev speaking to the media in Skopje on Thursday.
Earlier North Macedonia’s president handed a mandate to the pro-Western ex-prime minister to form a new government after his party bloc narrowly won a July 15 early parliamentary election.
“I will lead a government that will not … veer away from the road leading to membership of the European Union after obtaining membership of NATO,” Zaev said.
Zaev, who had led the previous government of the former Yugoslav republic since 2017, put the country on a path toward EU membership by agreeing to add “North” to its name, a report of Reuters said. That resolved a decades-old stand-off with Greece, which had viewed the name Macedonia as a claim on its province of the same name, and had blocked its neighbor’s entry into both the EU and NATO. Newly renamed North Macedonia joined NATO this year.
Parliament dissolved in February when Zaev resigned after the EU declined to set a date for membership negotiations. A month later the EU announced talks could begin. It again set no date, but diplomats said it would likely be later this year.
A party alliance led by the Social Democrats squeaked to victory in the parliamentary election with 35.89 percent of the vote, just ahead of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE with 34.57 percent.
In any expected scenario Zaev needs to ensure the support of parties representing the ethnic Albanian minority which gained 32 seats in the 120-member parliament before getting the green light to form a cabinet. /argumentum.al