Macedonia: Albanian Opposition Announces Protests

This is the third announcement of planned street protests by opposition parties in recent weeks.

The New Democracy party, ND, said on Wednesday that the most recent motivation for their protest is the government's draft law on the upcoming census that they say is designed to paint a picture of the population that indicates fewer Albanians live in the country than is actually the case. They argue that the census should also include ethnic Albanians who reside in Macedonia but do not hold the country's citizenship.

The party says that their dissatisfaction with the census draft law is just the tip of the iceberg.

“The people can no longer tolerate this pile-up of bad policies,” ND lawmaker Flora Kadriu said yesterday.

ND officials slammed the coalition between the ruling VMRO DPMNE party and its junior Albanian partner, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI for failing to unblock the EU and NATO integration of the country, which is stalled over the country's dispute with Greece.

They complain that, amid growing poverty, the government is spending money on projects such as the Skopje 2014 revamp of the capital's downtown, which the ND says favors the ethnic Macedonian majority.

The other opposition Albanian party, the Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA said yesterday that it will call on people to boycott the census set for next year, and announced the party is also preparing street protests.

The rightist opposition party United for Macedonia, UM, has set its rally for November 7.

Macedonia’s main opposition party, the Social Democrats, SDSM, held the first of its rallies against the government on October 11 and is planning to stage more.

The opposition parties claim they are not working in coordination but say the one factor that unites them is their discontent with the government's policies in recent years.