SDSM’s leader, Zoran Zaev, at a press conference today, announced that he expects the President of the country, Gjorge Ivanov, to hand over the mandate to form a new government, because the party leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, in the past 20 days, wasn’t able to form a government coalition.
“Gruevski will never be Prime Minister again. It is evident that Gruevski doesn’t have the necessary majority to form a government. Last night, at midnight, VMRO-DPMNE officially lost the opportunity to form a government. Macedonia has no time to waste, the democratic process has started, as that was a decision made by its citizens. I expect Ivanov to hand over the mandate for forming a new government. All other options will violate the Constitution and will lead to abuse of office”, said Zaev at the press conference.
He stressed that it is necessary to form a government which will reflect the will of the majority of citizens, who had previously expressed their will at the early parliamentary elections, held on the 11th of December last year.
“A stable and responsible government is required, which will improve the lives of the citizens, which will lead to real policies and will secure Macedonia’s strategic interests i.e. Euro-Atlantic integration. We are ready and committed to forming a government that will implement the priorities reforms which arose from the Pržino Agreement, the Priebe report and the European Commission”, said SDSM’s leader.
When asked by a journalist about the demands from the Platform of the Albanian parties, Zaev said that SDSM will announce its position and if granted the mandate, these issues will be discussed in a transparent way.
“On one occasion, I said that we have a position and opinion about the platform of the Albanian parties, signed and supported by them all, and I believe that DPA is also supporting this platform including DUI’s pre-conditions. I hope that we will be awarded the mandate so we can announce our opinions immediately, and you can sense that. We stand for a society that will be equal for everyone. Our position, is that the citizen should be at the centre of the next government’s attention. We are completely positive by these aspects and if the mandate is handed over sooner, I believe we will open these issues in a transparent and clear way, in order to be clear and unambiguous for all the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia”, said Zaev.
When asked what would happen if Ivanov does not award the mandate for forming the new government, the SDSM leader said there were alternative solutions if that happens, yet he didn’t want to comment on that, but in the past it has shown that every attempt for something unconstitutional, there were backlashes, after which things returned to normal.
