Pavle Trajanov and his Democratic Alliance (DS) party have rejected the idea to invite VMRO-DPMNE to the SDSM led coalition. Trajanov, who recently left SDSM’s group in Parliament but continued to vote to support Zoran Zaev’s Government, said that Zaev’s proposal to add VMRO to the coalition is not serious, and that the VMRO response is not sincere.

VMRO-DPMNE said that it will not join a criminal regime. Zaev’s offer seemed more calculated to create divisions in VMRO-DPMNE and embolden the Saso Mijalkov-Nikola Todorov led faction with a promise of sharing the spoils of power if the opposition party removes Hristijan Mickoski as its leader, than as a real offer of creating a Government of national unity.

Instead of empty debates, the Government needs to focus on effective fight against the pandemic, especially on obtaining vaccines, on unblocking our EU integrations, decriminalization and on the stability of the state and economic development. And the opposition parties need to be more responsible and support proposed laws that help deal with the healthcare crisis and build unity around national and state issues, Trajanov said.

Parties like Trajanov’s DS exact a heavy price for supporting Zaev, who only has 62 seats in the 120 seat Parliament. Same goes for Zaev’s Albanian coalition partners like DUI and BESA. Adding VMRO to the coalition would destroy their bargaining power, and DUI immediately rejected the idea. VMRO has proposed the creation of a non-partisan expert Government that would deal with the pandemic, the economic collapse and the dispute with Bulgaria, while preparing early elections in October along with the municipal elections. The party rejected Zaev’s offer declaring it a ploy to try and divide the opposition.