DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti is likely getting cold feet, after his underling, Deputy Prime Miniter Artan Grubi, last week announced his presidential candidacy. Comments from, echoed by news sites under DUI control and other party officials, clearly indicated that Ahmeti is entering the presidential race.

“Only Ali Ahmeti”, wrote Grubi on his social media accounts, in response to the group of opposition Albanian parties who are nominating Gostivar Mayor Arben Taravari as their presidential candidate. Ahmeti wanted to sit out the presidential race and support the candidate put forward by his allied SDSM party, in exchange for major concessions in the general elections – and likely the choice of Prime Minister in half of the four year term the two parties are hoping to win in May.

But the nomination of an ethnic Albanian candidate in the first round of presidential elections meant that Ahmeti could lose a huge chunk of his voters, who would support Taravari over an ethnic Macedonian nominated by SDSM, and this could then drag DUI down in the key general elections vote on May 8th, which prompted Ahmeti to announce his run and likely abandon the idea of a joint election run with SDSM. VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski strongly encouraged Ahmeti to run, saying that it will be a great opportunity for VMRO to defeat the SDSM candidate, and the Albanian opposition parties to defeat Ahmeti in the first ound of the presidential elections on April 24th. Given the huge margin VMRO has over SDSM, the party, which supported Taravari for Mayor of Gostivar, could again engage in tactical voting and help him beat Ahmeti.

Faced with this prospect, Ahmeti sent Grubi to do an interview with 360 Degrees, where the idea of Ahmetis’ nomination began to be pulled back. “It’s difficult to convince Ahmeti. You know his position – he says, ‘I’m a missionary, not an official’. And we have to back down before this argument. But if you ask any DUI party member, they all choose Ali Ahmeti”, Grubi said.

DUI could run Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani, or Talat Xhaferi, who was recently named first Albanian Prime Minister of Macedonia as part of DUI’s agreement with SDSM. Grubi is unlikely to run for President, given the numerous corruption revelations that were made recently about him.

In the interview, Grubi endorsed Osmani as an option, if Ahmeti can’t be convinced to join the race. He also said that DUI was proposing a non-partisan candidate who would be supported by both DUI and the Albanian opposition parties, but that this idea collapsed when Taravari was nominated.

Polls show that the Albanian opposition, united in a European Movement for Change, could seriously challenge DUI, which held absolute power in the Albanian camp in Macedonia since the 2001 war which Ahmeti provoked. The opposition group is drawing a lot of support from Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and is successfully spreading his anti-corruption message and aiming it at DUI. Grubi acknowledged that DUI counts on about 52 percent of the Albanian vote, but undermined the other 48 percent, insisting that they won’t all go toward the opposition bloc, but will be divided with several smaller parties, who were created with help from DUI in an attempt to break up the opposition vote.

DUI and SDSM will meet again in the coming days to re-examine the idea of a joint presidential candidate, and the still active idea for joint lists of candidates for the general elections. But after the creation of the united Albanian opposition bloc makes this prospect more and more remote.