Macedonia's Gruevski Fails to Form New Govt

The Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, which was the VMRO DPMNE's junior partner in the last coalition government, said on Sunday at midnight that it has not yet reached a decision on whether to join a new administration led by Gruevski.

This means that Gruevski missed his deadline to secure a majority of at least 61 MPs in the 120-seat parliament and must return his mandate to the President, Gjorge Ivanov, on Monday.

"The DUI did not reach a decision today on any of the five options which we were considering... because there were not enough arguments to choose any of them," DUI spokesperson Bujar Osmani told reporters around midnight, destroying the VMRO DPMNE's hopes of a positive response.

Immediately after hearing the DUI's answer, the VMRO DPMNE said in a statement that fresh elections were the best option to end the political stalemate.

The DUI previously said its presidency was mulling five options - joining a VMRO DPMNE coalition government, joining the main opposition Social Democrats in government, forming a wide-ranging government alliance, staying in opposition, or going for new elections.

The party's presidency had been pondering these options at intense meetings since Friday and according to Osmani, will continue to do so in the coming days.

According to the constitution, Gruevski must now return his mandate, after which the President Ivanov has ten days to give it to another contender who will also try to secure majority.

Due to different interpretations of the constitutional provisions, observers are not entirely sure whether Ivanov now has to give the mandate to Gruevski's bitter rival, the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM leader Zoran Zaev, whose party came second, winning 49...