DUI party officials Bujar Osmani and Artan Grubi extended the party’s fight with Zoran Zaev and his SDSM party. DUI came out with a request that the next Prime Minister is an ethnic Albanian, which prompted a rare outburst from Zoran Zaev, who while usually quick to accept any concession with Macedonian national issues, made a number of public statements aimed against DUI on this issue and is now campaigning in opposition to it.

The citizens should come out and vote. They decide, not DUI, Zaev tweeted out yesterday. The SDSM party leader is desperate to have elections as soon as possible, and has turned the fight with DUI in a way to push voters, deeply worried about the coronavirus epidemic, to come out and vote.

Osmani and Grubi responded to the tweet. They reminded Zaev of the kingmaker role DUI plays in the disputes between the two major Macedonian parties – SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE, and how DUI played a crucial role in making him Prime Minister.

We heard his statement that the voters decide and not the parties. But in 2016 the voters decied that Nikola Gruevski should be Prime Minister. And yet DUI decided that Zoran Zaev should be Prime Minister. The issue of forming a Government is a matter of political compromise. We believe that the time is right that in 2020 we appoint the first ethnic Albanian Prime Minister, Osmani said.

VMRO-DPMNE won the December 2016 elections, but under intense international pressure DUI eventually decided to form a coalition with SDSM, instead of following the unwritten rule that DUI itself insisted on that the two winning parties from both major ethnic groups form the Government.

While the dispute looks like artificial playing of the nationalist card by both these parties, SDSM and DUI are locked in a real battle for Albanian votes. SDSM has been losing the Macedonian support with all the national concessions it signed on to, and has been forced to appeal to Albanian voters instead, intruding on DUI’s turf. In response, Grubi, seen as the right hand man to DUI leader Ali Ahmeti, asked the Albanian votes: “Do you want to elect Zoran, Hristijan or an Albanian?”

Media leaks that followed DUI’s announcement indicated that the party is trying to get Lazim Destani, a major businessman from Tetovo, to be the DUI nominee for Prime Minister. Zaev was visibly pressured by this announcement and insisted that Destani is declining the offer.