DUI decides: Talat Xhaferi, prime minister of the technical government in North Macedonia

2023-12-08 21:46:26, Kosova & Bota CNA

DUI decides: Talat Xhaferi, prime minister of the technical government in North

The Democratic Union for Integration has decided in a meeting on Friday to propose Talat Xhaferi as prime minister of the transitional government for the last 100 days of the executive, before the expected spring elections.

Mr. Xhaferi is currently the Speaker of the Parliament of North Macedonia. He is expected to assume the office of prime minister on January 28, 2024. This decision comes as a result of the agreement known as the "Perzhina Agreement" for the establishment of a technical government 100 days before the parliamentary elections.

Mr. Xhaferi will take the place of the temporary head of the government according to the bilateral agreement in 2020 between the Democratic Union for Integration and the Social Democratic League (LSDM) so that this post belongs to the Albanian partner of the governing coalition.

In recent weeks, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE has spoken out against the technical government, while DUI and some analysts have described this as an attitude, not only against DUI, but also anti-Albanian of the Macedonian nationalist party. DUI, meanwhile, has used the issue of the "first Albanian prime minister" (in North Macedonia) for its needs and political campaigns almost since the beginning of the last coalition with SDSM.

According to expectations, the post of the speaker of the parliament in the remaining 100 days of the current composition will be taken by the coordinator of the group of SDSM deputies, Jovan Mitreski.

Parliamentary elections will be held on May 8 together with the second round of presidential elections. The first round of the presidential elections is held on April 24.
The Prime Minister and leader of SDSM, Dimitar Kovacevski has called on the pro-European parties instead to join in a pre-election coalition, but without specifying whether the invitation also applies to DUI and the Alliance for Albanians, the partners of the current coalition in the government .

Meanwhile, the three Albanian opposition parties, Lévizja Besa, Alternativa and Lévizja Demokratike, have formalized the decision for a joint coalition in the spring elections. They have also announced the emergence of a joint candidate for president of North Macedonia, although an Albanian candidate has never managed to pass the second round, since the independence of this country 32 years ago./ VOA