Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi violated the rules of the house and stopped the session meant to have members of the Government answers questions from the representatives. Instead, Xhaferi insisted that the Parliament debates the proposed stimulus package and other items of the agenda of the SDSM – DUI – BESA coalition.

The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party walked out of the hall after this abuse of office by Xhaferi, which is certain to deteriorate relations between the coalition and the opposition even further.

No other Speaker has done anything like this? You are acting like you have 100 members in your majority, while you only have 62. Stop blaming the opposition, all responsibility is on you, said Nikola Micevski who leads the VMRO group in Parliament.

Until now, the ruling majority has always taken the session dedicated to questions from the representatives very seriously, as one of the main forms of holding the executive accountable. It was the only reason why the members of the opposition were in the building. VMRO offered the ruling coalition the votes it needs to open a session on the proposed stimulus package, which is awaited by many hurting businesses, but only if other pet projects by the coalition are not on the agenda. The coalition has persistently lacked the 61 votes it needs to open a session of Parliament because at any given time, some of its representatives is away on travel or sick with the coronavirus.

Xhaferi insisted that he has the right to change the agenda of the Parliament and to stop the question time. But hours before, he insisted that the Parliament will only convene for the question time session – openly lying to the opposition. Xhaferi met with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti earlier today and it’s likely that the plan for the ruse was made there. Their feint is likely to push the Parliament even deeper into gridlock as the coalition attempts to continue to govern with just 62 votes.

Meanwhile, the opposition Albanian parties, AA and Alternative, announced they will block the stimulus bill in a different form – by submitting thousands of amendments against it which will gridlock the Parliament. The parties demand that the Parliament first adopts a new citizenship law that would make it extremely easy for people to claim citizenship – merely by providing witnesses that they lived in Macedonia prior to its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. The parties are eager to further expand the practice of issuing dual, triple and quadruple citizenships to ethnic Albanians between Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and Serbia.