In his first interview following the major electoral victory on Wednesday, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski said that he expects to consolidate a ruling majority by the end of the month, and added that VMRO is open to all opposition parties. VMRO won 58 seats in Parliament, three short of an outright majority, and has a wide selection of options to form a coalition.

Given the practice that the winning Macedonian party takes an Albanian party as its coalition partner, Mickoski said that the oppositon VLEN bloc proved its legitimacy in the elections.

With their result, with the 107,000 votes they received, I believe that VLEN confirmed its credibility and can be a credible partner in the future VMRO-DPMNE led Government. I do not expect changes in the positions of the current DUI party leadership, I don’t think they would support our policies. But we will not act aloof and we will give a chance to anyone, Mickoski said.

DUI beat VLEN in the confrontation in the Albanian political camp, with an advantage of about 30,000 votes. But DUI has a number of coalition parties in its group, not to mention their extensive record of corruption that VMRO has been pointing out during the entire campaign.

We have strong indications of crime and corruption. Between the two electoral rounds, we have been approached by people who brought us shocking evidence. Many of these cases were documented by the technical Government, especially in the Labour and the Interior Ministry. There will be accountability, Mickoski said, again insisting that the current Judicial Council and Council of State Prosecutors need to be dismissed and replaced with institutions that will be elected under a different model.