Macedonian Capital's Mayoral Hopefuls Court Albanian Votes

As the two leading candidates for the post of Mayor of Skopje try to woo ethnic Albanian voters ahead of the vote on October 15, both are avoiding the kind of divisive ethnic language that marred last year's general elections.

In the campaign for the December 2016 early general elections, the then ruling VMRO DPMNE party went all out in accusing its main opponents in the Social Democrats, SDSM, of surrendering to ethnic Albanian demands.

This year, however, the party's mayoral candidate for Skopje has even fielded ethnic Albanian politician as party's municipal counselor.

In a clear attempt to circumvent his party's dismal reputation among many Albanians, VMRO DPMNE's Koce Trajanovski, now running for his third term, got support from his Albanian party colleague, Muhamed Ameti.

The two can be seen posing together on Albanian-language billboards that also contain the party's election slogan: "A new era begins for Skopje."

The billboards have been widely displayed in the mainly Albanian districts of Cair and Saraj in Skopje.

A source from Trajanovski's electoral camp confided to BIRN that the party was well aware that it needed to court more Albanian votes.

"In last year's elections, ethnic Albanian votes boosted the SDSM. But in these local elections that will be hard to replicate, as everyone can see that Trajanovski is a hard-working mayor, so we expect many Albanian votes," the source, insisting on anonymity, said.

Previously, the party made few attempts to appeal to Albanians, who make up about a quarter of the population, concentrated in the north and west of the country.

They also make up between 10 and 20 per cent of the population of Skopje - but these numbers are only approximate as no...