New Alliance Worries North Macedonia’s Junior Ruling Party

The junior ruling ethnic Albanian party in North Macedonia has reacted with dismay to the announcement of a new election alliance between its senior partner and another ethnic Albanian party.

A senior official from the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said the new agreement between the Social Democrats and BESA would only damage the Albanian vote in the April general elections.

"Instead of congratulating the biggest merger of the smaller Albanian parties, we are unfortunately witnessing yet another undercutting of the Albanian votes, by those same parties," the DUI Education Minister, Arber Ademi, told Alsat M TV on Thursday, after the Social Democrats and BESA announced their alliance.

Ademi said ethnic Albanian parties should be joining forces within their own camp to maximize the number of Albanian MPs in parliament. "This move contradicts Albanian interests and is a disappointing attempt for survival on the political scene," he said.

Zoran Zaev's Social Democrats and BESA, led by Bilal Kasami, announced their election alliance as a historic first on Thursday.

The ethnically divided country has never before seen an alliance between mainly Macedonian and Albanian players formed ahead of the polls.

Since North Macedonia became independent, the unwritten rule has been that the winners in the Macedonian and Albanian camps only negotiate a government coalition after the elections. Ethnic Albanians make up roughly a quarter of North Macedonia's population of 2.1 million.

Leaders of the new alliance said the breakthrough would help build a sounder and more inclusive society in North Macedonia, adding that they were open for further partnership with other political players who share the same values.

The new alliance...