DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti is reviving his past provocative comment that he wants Macedonia to “become like Switzerland”. Ahmeti used the comment in the past, shortly after sparking the 2001 inter-ethnic war as head of the terrorist NLA/UCK organization.

The comment was used throughout the 20th century when the future organization of Macedonia was discussed, and it implies arranging the country in cantonal units – for Macedonians, Albanians, Vlachs.. Zoran Zaev also evoked it in 2016, when he campaigned for the support of the nationalist Albanian diaspora in Switzerland.

When I used the comment in the past, Macedonian media and politicians saw it as a provocation. They wrote that I want a cantonal Macedonia. but now, in 2021, 20 years later, Macedonia is a NATO member state. And now I want to make Macedonia a better country for all its citizens, Ahmeti said during a TV interview.

Last week Ahmeti suddenly declared that DUI is now a green party that will focus mainly on environmental issues – which prompted mockery in the public given how the environment is treated in municipalities ran by DUI at the moment – with record air pollution levels, lack of water, over-development, illegal logging and burning of the reeds along the shore of lake Ohrid.