Macedonia's DUI Ambiguous About Joining New Govt

The Democratic Union for Integration, DUI - the ethnic Albanian party with the most MPs in parlliament - has sent out conflicting signals about joining a new government coalition led by former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the leader of the VMRO DPMNE.

DUI spokesperson Bujar Osmani joined the VMRO DPMNE in saying that both parties uphold their previous unwritten deal stipulating that the government should be formed between the two parties winning the most MPs in the ethnic Macedonian and Albanian blocs respectively.

But his colleague, DUI vice president Teuta Arifi said that such a principle does not exist, and even if it does, the political situation has changed since the unwritten deal was made in May 2007.

Gruevski has four more days to form a government after his VMRO DPMNE all but tied with the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM at general elections in November. He needs to form a coalition to be able to govern.

Osmani gave Gruevski hope by suggesting that a new alliance between the DUI and the VMRO DPMNE - as in the previous government that held power before the elections - was possible.

"There are arguments for and against it. The main argument for [this option], and probably the only reason why we are negotiating for a possible alliance, is precisely this important principle of 'winner with winner' [to form a government]," he said.

But the DUI's vice president Arifi said that this principle which says that the winning parties in each ethnic bloc should form a government together is not even mentioned clearly in the May 2007 deal.

"That deal has five points and in the fifth it is stated that after the overcoming of the crisis [at the time] and the DUI's return to parliament, the formulations for assembling a...