Macedonian Albanians Likely to Seek Key Ministries

Formal talks between Gruevski’s centre-right VMRO-DPMNE party and the junior Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, are expected to start this week after both parties declared victory in the June 5 elections.

VMRO-DPMNE beat the opposition Social Democrats, while the DUI won among the country’s large ethnic Albanian bloc.

While the parties remain silent on their strategies and demands, an unnamed high-ranking DUI official told Balkan Insight that “the future government will have to incorporate our election platform as well”.

During the election, the DUI campaigned for speedy NATO and EU accession, making the Albanian language official throughout the whole country and more budget money for ethnic Albanian regions.

The same DUI official said the party would seek “firm guarantees from the Prime Minister that the country will speed up its NATO and EU accession”.

This path is currently blocked by Greece over the long-standing dispute over the country's name. Athens says use of the name "Macedonia" implies a territorial claim to the northern Greek province, also called Macedonia.

The official did not say clearly whether this means that the party would set a deadline for a "name" deal with Greece.

Gruevski has two options. "One is to make concessions and hammer out a deal with the Albanian parties and the other is to yield the [premier's] mandate to the opposition [Social Democrats],” political analyst Albert Musliu said.

Musliu predicted that the DUI would demand some more important ministerial seats as well as concessions on Albanian rights.

Speculation is that the DUI will seek the police ministry and the foreign ministry or finance ministry. The DUI also hopes to appoint the speaker for parliament.

Unofficially, the DUI is believed also to have it sights on the education ministry which is of increased political importance for them as a party that has pledged to strengthen educational levels in their community.

Analysts say that Gruevski, who has been Prime Minister since 2006, has less space for maneuvering this time round, because although his VMRO-DPMNE party won the recent general election, it no longer has an absolute majority in parliament.

After the 2008 early elections, when the DUI first joined the government, VMRO-DPMNE held 63 of the 120 seats. Now it holds 56 out of 123. The DUI's 15 seats are enough to give Gruevski a stable majority.

In an interview for the daily Dnevnik, Skopje University professor Biljana Vankovska notes that a solution to the name dispute does not depend on the political will of VMRO-DPMNE alone, and the DUI is probably using this issue as a bargaining coin.

“The DUI... are trying to be tough negotiators” Vankovska is quoted as saying. "If they eventually withdraw from this [name] issue, they can hope their other demands pass more smoothly”.