Forming a government without a justified mandate is legally unjustifiable, said President Gjorge Ivanov in an interview for Austrian newspaper “Wiener Zeitung.”
“Such a government would be without presidential legitimacy i.e. without constitutional basis. It is only a wish. It is legally unjustified. Such a government will have no legitimacy. This is clearly stated in our Constitution. In accordance with Article 90 of the Constitution, only the President of the state can assign the mandate for forming a government. In this case, there would be two governments. The current, which is a technocratic government, and a government without legitimacy assigned by the President i.e. without constitutional basis. That means we shall enter into a deeper crisis”, said Ivanov, when he replied to a question about the possibility of the formation of a government without him assigning the mandate.
He stressed that since the proclamation of independence of the Republic of Macedonia, the party which has won the most MPs in Parliament has received the mandate for forming a government.
“After the elections of the 11th of December, I did what I and my predecessors have always done i.e. we assigned the mandate for forming a government to the winner of the elections. However, VMRO-DPMNE didn’t manage to form a coalition with the parties of the Macedonian Albanians within the set time period of 20 days, according to the Constitution. To explain this more precisely, the coalition was actually agreed. But at the last moment there was a telephone call and the coalition fell apart”, said Ivanov, and he refused to go into details about who the caller was.
He said that even if a Parliament Speaker is elected and even if SDSM manages to reach an agreement for a coalition with the Albanian parties, he will remain firm on his position not to assign the mandate because of the Tirana platform.
“I will not assign the mandate to a coalition like that due to political reasons”, said Ivanov.
