After a tense day in the Parliament, the ruling coalition and VMRO-DPMNE reached agreement that work will resume only on the proposed stimulus bill and several other urgently needed items for which VMRO offered to provide the quorum.

The coalition and Speaker Talat Xhaferi tried to use the fact that most members of Parliament were present for the question time session, when they get to request answers from members of the Government. Surreptitiously, Xhaferi tried to use the quorum and to submit the stimulus bills and dozens of other items from the agenda of the ruling SDSM – DUI – BESA coalition on the agenda. VMRO representatives stormed off after this stunt.

We were here to ask questions from Government members about their corruption. We were here to ask where did the Louis Vuitton bag from the Racket scandal end up? Where is the money taken by Den Doncev? What happened with Dragi Raskovski’s software? We were not given a chance, said VMRO-DPMNE member of Parliament Nikola Micevski.

After a coordination between the main parties, and faced with the prospect of a completely gridlocked Parliament, the ruling majority agreed to debate only the items VMRO-DPMNE agreed with – mainly the stimulus package.

Today we saw that the Government only has majority when it comes to extending its own mandate, but not to adopt needed legislation. We will protect the interests of the citizens, said VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski, while announcing that the opposition will provide quorum, but only for the urgently needed items in the public interest.

VMRO also removed several of its non-urgent items, including the votes of no confidence in ministers Ljupco Nikolovski and Bojan Maricic, but also the proposal to postpone the census which the Zaev regime intends to hold starting next week.