DUI leader Ali Ahmeti dismissed media reports that he is sending emissaries to VMRO-DPMNE, asking to be allowed into the Government. According to the reports, Ahmeti was offering to replace VLEN as VMRO’s Albanian coalition partner, and would take a smaller share of the Government than what VLEN currently holds, including giving up the position of Parliament Speaker.

We are legitimate representatives of the Albanians. We are not interested to join the Government, because we are not a spare tire, said Ahmeti.

Meanwhile, VLEN held a press conference in which they accused DUI of profitting from the expanding gambling businesses. According to VLEN member of Parliament Saranda Imeri, Ahmeti’s family is in business with an American Albanian businessman Nazar (Nick) Mehmeti, who made his money in the striptease industry in Texas.

Imeri said that it was Mehmeti’s company who intervened and took over the share Ahmeti’s family took in the Soravia business center in Skopje, to help Ahmeti manage the growing scandal. Ahmeti was accused that he had traded political and business favors when his nephew Drin Ahmeti was simply given a large ownership share in Soravia, without investing or otherwise contributing to the purchase of the business center.

It was Mehmeti’s company that lent 3 million EUR for the takeover of Soravia, said Imeri, who accused the previous Government of directing a number of public contracts toward the Ahmeti family and businesses linked to them.