Gruevski's government

Still no newly elected council for national broadcaster:

Changes to the national broadcaster, Macedonian Radio and Television, MRT, and to the institution that regulates the electronic media, the Agency for Audio and Audio-visual Services, AVMU, were key stated priorities for the Social Democrats.

A Macedonian court has ruled that Prime Minister Zoran Zaev was not guilty of having solicited a bribe of 200,000 euros to help a local businessman buy land in his home town of Strumica.

"I am happy about the acquittal and that I finally proved my innocence and received justice," Zaev said in front of the court after the ruling was issued.

Macedonia's SJO on Wednesday said it suspects the leader of the largest ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia, the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, Ali Ahmeti, as well as former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, of spending 2.8 million euros on a census in 2011 which they later deliberately scrapped.

A record number of 23 lawyers, university law professors, judges and notaries have applied to Macedonia's parliament for the key post of chief prosecutor - which was vacated in August.

Gjorgi Lazarevski, one of three former Macedonian secret policemen who are credited with handed over wiretapped recordings of official conversations to the then opposition leader, Zoran Zaev, said he was delighted that his actions had exposed and ultimately brought down the government of Nikola Gruevski.

The head of the ethnic Albanian Besa party in Macedonia, Bilall Kasami, on Wednesday said his party's participation in a new Social Democrat-led government will depend on whether other participants propose ministers who are entangled in corruption scandals.

VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski's New Year "mega interview" for the news portal Republika - in which he accused the Foundation Open Society - Macedonia, FOOM, of plotting to topple his government in the name of "foreign interests", naming US Billionaire George Soros as the alleged mastermind - has heated up Macedonia's media and social networks.

Macedonia's parliament voted on Jan. 18 to dissolve itself as of Feb. 24, clearing the way to an early parliamentary election two months later that the opposition says it will boycott.

A proposal to raise the number of diaspora MPs from three to 20 in the 123-seat parliament has met a cold response from the main opposition Social Democrats.

The Social Democrats said the idea, presented as the parties mull electoral changes ahead of the snap elections set for next April, was "a plan to avoid electoral defeat" on the part of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party.

Opposition Social Democrats leader Zoran Zaev said on Saturday that if no agreement with the government is made to appoint the special prosecutor by the deadline agreed in a deal aimed at ending the political crisis in Macedonia, his party won't hesitate to release more wiretapped tapes.