DUI leader Ali Ahmeti said that the party will wants to have a joint presidential candidate with its coalition partner SDSM, but that he will not accept the candidate to be elected by an SDSM party convention.

They are now saying they will have a convention. I don’t go to other people’s weddings. I don’t go to a wedding where I’ve not been invited. These irresponsible moves by SDSM, by their high representatives, are not correct. We are not their crutch, we are not a tailcoat. Not for Gruevski before, and not for Zaev. Therefore we performed a serious analysis and decided to have a candidate of our own, Ahmeti told MRTV2.

For a few weeks DUI was publicly debating several ethnic Macedonian candidates, some of whom have Albanian ancestors, who they said would be good as “consensual” DUI – SDSM presidential candidates. But, after the talks have stalled, and as SDSM seems intent to have the main say in electing the candidate, DUI announced it will run with its own candidate.

No minority candidate has ever reached the second round of the elections, which are resolved between VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM, while the smaller parties can try swing the vote toward one of the candidates of the two main parties. The elections are expected in April, and VMRO-DPMNE already began the procedure to elect its candidate between nine hopefuls, while SDSM just opened a public call for potential candidates.