English
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said that he will be parting ways with Healthcare Minister Arben Taravari, who has “decided to return to the embrace of Ali Ahmeti”. Mickoski said that he will have a farewell meeting with Taravari soon but drew a dividing line between Taravari and other officials and members of his Alliance of Albanians party.
I think that Mr. Taravari and a few around him are determined to return to the embrace of Ali Ahmeti and the Democratic Union of Integration. I can only wish him good luck with that. I hope that we will have a farewell meeting next week, to sum up all that was done, Prime Minister Mickoski said during a public event in Skopje today.
Taravari initially said that he is running independently in the coming local elections, and withdrew from the idea to have the Alliance field joint candidates with the other three parties in the VLEN coalition, which has since spoken publicly against him and have coalesced into a unified party. Mickoski met both with Taravari and the VLEN leaders, and has finally announced that Taravari will be leaving the Government.
The last thing I expected him to do is to return to the embrace of Ali Ahmeti, but that is his decision. I’m convinced that it’s a decision of a small group, and not of the membership of the Alliance of Albanians and a large portion of its officials who are in the Government. It would have been virtuous for him not to drag us and the citizens around, but slowly but surely it becomes clear that he is returning to the embrace of those who have plundered and criminalized Macedonia for the past two decades, Mickoski added.
