Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski believes that the initial plans by the DUI party to cause ethnic strife and disturbances in Macedonia have been prevented, but that Ali Ahmeti’s party is now gearing toward a different tactic. Ahmeti has been in power almost without interruption since the 2001 civil war that he provoked, and now the party visibly anxious at being left in opposition by Mickoski, who chose the VLEN coalition as his Albanian partner. Mickoski warned that, in response, Ahmeti is planning significant disturbances during the autumn season.

The initial plans for destabilization have obviously been thwarted. Now we see a softer rhetoric, with plans for protests. I have said it many times in the past that democratic and peaceful protests are a democratic tool and I have nothing against it. It is their choice if, as a group of citizens, they want to use these tools, so long as they are peaceful and democratic. That is the beauty of democracy, when people have different opinions. But if these protests move from democratic to violent, we will have to defend the institutions, as is normal and to be expected from a Government, said Mickoski.

DUI is currently pushing an alleged grass-root campaign, in which signs are being posted across the country with calls to Ahmeti to lead the Albanian community in protests against the Government. At the same time, Albanian language media outlets are reporting that Ahmeti was sending envoys to VMRO to try to negotiate a place in the Government for DUI.

DUI is slowly but surely getting used to being in the opposition. I wish them to conduct reforms while they are in opposition, to find a new political identity, to do personnel reforms and maybe, in some future elections, we will see a different approach from the one they had in the past 20 years, Mickoski said.