In an interview with Fokus, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said that DUI endangers inter-ethnic relations in Macedonia and the peace and stability of the country, and that the Government will take steps to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Macedonia. This is in response to calls from Ali Ahmeti’s party to create a majority Albanian regional unit within Macedonia, as well as a number of other provocative nationalist steps, after that party was left in the opposition for the first time in 16 years.

Their point is to protect the capital they accumulated over the past 22 years, when they were in power for a total of 20 years. But I also don’t discount the possibility that some groups and structures are manipulated and could now be used to challenge the territorial integrity and to create a crisis. As a Government, we have the task to defend it and we will, Mickoski said in the interview.
He added that peaceful protests are democratically legitimate. “But if they turn violent, I will say it again, as a Government, we have the right to defend the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of the country”.

Mickoski reminded DUI that they themselves violated the unwritten rule that the largest Macedonian party takes the largest Albanian party in coalition, when they refused to form a Government with VMRO-DPMNE in 2016. “DUI and SDSM, as was their coalition, won less than 300,000 votes, while VMRO-DPMNE won nearly 450,000 votes – over 600,000 together with VLEN and ZNAM. So the will of the people is clear”.