Macedonian parliament overrun
MACEDONIA’S parliament became a fighting pit yesterday after it was stormed by protesters following the election of an ethnic Albanian as Speaker.
In clashes that lasted several hours, 77 people were injured, including 22 police officers and several MPs.
Scores of protesters, some of them masked, attacked MPs after breaking through a police cordon, enraged that the opposition Social Democrats and parties representing Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority had voted to name Talat Xhaferi as Speaker.
Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev was left bloodied with a deep facial wound.
Media reports suggested many of the protesters were supporters of former PM
Nikola Gruevski, whose nationalist party won the most seats in December’s election but fell shy of forming government on its own.
With the parliament at a stalemate, Mr Gruevski’s supporters have been engaged in street rallies for the past two months across the country as he tries to
form a coalition government.
After more than three hours in the parliament, protesters were eventually forced from the building by police firing flash grenades.
The Social Democrats later accused conservatives of inciting the violence and causing “hatred and division” among Macedonians.