VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski called for broad talks on abolishing the Badinter rule and other elements of the 2001 Ohrid peace treaty that followed the Albanian insurgency. The call comes after the coordinated push by the Albanian parties to amend the Constitution and to make the Albanian language fully official – even though this is not provided under Ohrid and the use of the language is linked to the percentage of the Albanian population in Macedonia. The treaty gives extra voting power to ethnic minority members of Parliament and proportionate representation in the public administration regardless of merit qualifications.

I’m ready to talk about everything, about erasing the percentage rule, and on having a single electoral district, about an end to the Badinter rule, since we see some political parties want to leave the Ohrid treaty. Let’s then try to work toward a society that we will project for the next 50 years, Mickoski said during a visit to Kavadarci.

He added that the single electoral district will put an end to the current situation to have mainly ethnic Albanian members of Parliament elected with between 5,000 and 5,500 votes in the 6th electoral district, while in the other, majority Macedonian districts it takes 8,000 to 8,500 votes.