Macedonia Parliament OKs Caretaker Govt

Lawmakers from the ruling parties on Monday gave the thumbs up on an interim Macedonian government, local media report.

The caretaker cabinet, which is to help the country prepare for early elections on April 24, was approved by lawmakers from the main ruling VMRO-DPMNE and its coalition partner in the previous government, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI).

Opposition socialists (SDSM) boycotted the vote. Their leader Zoran Zaev declared last week, at a meeting of political leaders brokered by EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, that his party would not run in the snap elections in April and called for the vote to be postponed so that its fairness is guaranteed.

Lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) chose to abstain.

Emil Dimitriev is now the caretaker PM of Macedonia after Nikola Gruevski stepped down as part of an agreement reached in June and July 2015.

Utrinski vesnik quotes him as saying the interim government would go on with the organization of "fair and democratic elections" with full support from state institutions.