Macedonia Officially Sets June 5 Election Date

Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski on Friday signed a decision calling for early parliamentary elections to be held on June 5.

The elections were officially called after the Parliament was dissolved yesterday, thus ending the mandate of the current MPs, who were elected in snap polls on June 1, 2008.

79 legislators endorsed the dissolution motion, most from the ruling coalition. 61 MPs, or more than half, were needed to dissolve the 120 seat assembly. None of the lawmakers present voted against the motion.

The final session of the assembly took place without the main opposition Social Democrats and their coalition partners, who have been boycotting parliament since late January.
 
Expressing his regret that the opposition chose not to appear, Veljanovski said that “the Parliament and its work cannot be held hostage by blackmail".

The current parliament has been dissolved after three years of work. It will be remembered by long boycotts by opposition parties and the more than 400 bills that were passed under a fast-track procedure.

The Social Democrats left the parliament in January in protest over what they say are curbed democratic freedoms and a poor economic situation. They blame Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of the centre-right VMRO DPMNE party for the troubled state they say Macedonia finds itself in.

After two months of talks between the government and the opposition over the rules and the date for snap polls, the Prime Minister cut the debate and called for early elections on June 5.

The opposition accepted, abandoning previous demands for reforming the electoral process.

However, they have warned PM Gruevski that they will call their supporters onto the streets if fraud is committed during the polls.