Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi said that the DUI party he comes from would be open to a coalition with VMRO-DPMNE following the elections in April.

DUI has been in power for nearly all of its existence, since 2002 when it was formed from the ranks of the UCK/NLA Albanian terrorist group. It was in coalition with VMRO since 2008, but in 2016 it violated its own rule that the winners of the Macedonian and the Albanian camp should form the Government to help Zoran Zaev and his SDSM party grab power. Zaev was pushing DUI for a pre-election coalition that he hopes would help SDSM reduce the losing margin against VMRO, but DUI is announcing it would rather remain the independent kingmaker and resents how SDSM is encroaching on its turf and attempts to win over Albanian voters.

I have not heard that VMRO has been ruled out by some of the Albanian parties. The voters will decide. Nominally, VMRO members of Parliament continue to say they don’t recognize me as Speaker, but we have a functional relationship, Xhaferi said when asked by the Koha newspaper about the prospects following the elections.