A government is possible without SDSM or without VMRO-DPMNE, but also without DUI, said President Stevo Pendarovski in an interview with “Fokus”.

The constitutional norm is crystal clear – the mandate is given to the candidate of the party or parties that have a majority in Parliament and here the president has virtually no room for maneuver, said Pendarovski, explaining that everything we saw in 2017, with some additional conditions, was a flagrant violation of the highest legal act.

The constitutive session of the tenth parliamentary composition is scheduled for Tuesday next week (August 4th).

According to the Almakos news site, a comment from Pendarovski, that Government ministers will need to be free from allegations of corruption and to have a clear pro-European orientation, as well as that top and lower echelons will need to be able to receive NATO security certificates, could be a message to DUI. Ali Ahmeti’s party has boasted with its kingmaker statues, as its 15 seats in Parliament will likely be essential to any of the major parties to form a Government.

But the party has a lengthy corruption record, that keeps getting covered up precisely because of its key role in successive Governments. It was form out of the 2001 UCK/NLA terrorist organization and Almakos says that both their corruption and militant past will make them fail Pendarovski’s criteria. For this to work, there would likely need to be some kind of a grand coalition between VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM, including smaller Albanian parties that rival DUI.