Adding the Alliance of Albanians to the ruling coalition just 500 days ahead of the regularly scheduled elections will do nothing to improve the situation with the rampant corruption, said VMRO-DPMNE official Stefan Andonovski during a Sitel TV interview. The party that was until recently allied with VMRO is now considering joining Kovacevski’s Government, eager to capitalize on the troubles in its key rival, the DUI party, which faces internal divisions.

The Alliance needs to answer to itself the question what will they change by entering the Government just 500 days before the regular elections. They won’t resolve corruption issues in this period, they won’t bring Macedonia to the EU, they will just serve the interests of Artan Grubi and Ali Ahmeti, whose main interest now is to preserve stability in their coalition, Andonovski said.

VMRO notes that members of Parliament from the SDSM party are considering voting for early elections – an initiative that is being resisted by blackmail and pressure from the Government, but could also be thwarted if AA joins the coalition. Andonovski said that VMRO won’t lose much if the prospect of early elections in spring is lost, but that the country will suffer.

It would be easiest for us to wait until 2024. This Government won’t achieve anything by then, it showed that it’s incompetent. By then, SDSM will be down from its current support of 11-12 percent to 9 percent, maybe even down to 7 percent. VMRO can only grow. But we pledged to listen to the voice of the people and they are calling for early elections, Andonovski said.