Vote a test for reform plans
SKOPJE: Macedonia’s parliament was set to vote yesterday on an opposition motion of no confidence in the government over its handling of relations with Greece and Bulgaria, but the ruling coalition was likely to survive the challenge.
The vote is a test for Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s reform agenda and policy of improving relations with the two neighbours as a step to joining the EU and Nato.
The main nationalist opposition party says a friendship agreement with Bulgaria ratified in January was harmful and accuses the government of lacking strategy in its talks with Greece to resolve a dispute over the name Macedonia.
It also accuses Zaev of reneging on election pledges to improve the economy, reform the judiciary and secure media freedom.
Macedonia declared independence in 1991 and avoided the other wars that rocked the former Yugoslavia, but an insurgency by its large ethnic Albanian minority nearly tore the country apart in 2001.
The country of 2 million has made little progress towards EU and Nato membership because of the dispute with Greece, which says the country’s name represents a territorial claim to a Greek province with the same name.
Debate on the motion began yesterday in the 120-seat parliament where the VMRO-DPMNE opposition is the largest single party but the ruling coalition holds a narrow majority.
Should the opposition get more than one-third of votes it would signal weakening support for Zaev’s policies on EU and Nato accession, said political consultant Petar Arsovski.
VMRO-DPMNE has returned to parliament after a boycott that began in December when five of its MPs were arrested over last year’s clashes between nationalist protesters and deputies in parliament in which Zaev was injured.
Its presence is key for the passage of laws including one on judiciary reform that is a pre-condition for EU accession and requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
“Zaev: you are leading the most inefficient and unworkable government in the history of our country,” Dragan Danev, the VMRO-DPMNE’s parliamentary co-ordinator, told deputies. “It’s not only me talking or my party, it’s the perception of the people. This government has shown that it does not have the capacity to hold executive power.”
The Zaev government took office last May, ending a two-year political crisis that brought a VMRO-DPMNE government down.