VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski said that during his recent meeting with DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti, Ahmeti told him that he will begin initial coalition talks with SDSM. According to Ahmeti, this is because SDSM won the ethnic Macedonian vote in the chaotic July 15 elections.

Ahmeti is a person who has experience in this, and I wished him luck in negotiating a coalition. We will build a coalition based on our program and we will not bother the citizens with our frustrations. Talks are on-going and I ask you to be patient, Mickoski said during a press conference today, when asked about the coalition talks so far.

The two main parties, VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM, are virtually tied after the inconclusive elections, and initially it is SDSM who began talks with DUI, a party which can provide just about enough votes to any to the two major parties to form a Government. DUI demands a high price though, and during the campaign it insisted that an ethnic Albanian is named Prime Minister.

Last week SDSM and DUI said that they reached agreement about the principles of the coalition, and Ahmeti met with Zaev yesterday, but informed that no agreement was reached yet.