The Alliance of Albanians and the BESA party, as well as the smaller Alternative party, have announced they are in talks over the creation of a pre-election coalition. The two conservative parties that represent ethnic Albanians are planning to join forces for the purpose of getting DUI out of office after almost uninterrupted 18 years.

We in the Alliance of Albanians are interested in a pre-election coalition with BESA and the Alternative party. We are prepared on our own, but we want our victory to be even greater and we are ready to cooperate with Alternative and BESA. We are in talks with both these parties, we are open to make a deal and we hope that together we will have a coalition which will definitely defeat DUI and will win the legitimacy of the Albanian voters, said Alliance spokesman Flakron Bexheti.

He said that the parties are still not engaged in talks with potential Macedonian partners. Outgoing Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has raised the opportunity of a pre-election coalition with DUI, which would be the first time that a major Macedonian and a major Albanian party join forces ahead of the election. DUI dismissed the option and the Albanian wing in Zaev’s own SDSM party is also bitterly opposed to this. Zaev is now even opening the idea of removing DUI from his coalition, even as there are only a few months to go before the elections expected in April 2020.