Ali Ahmeti

Macedonia's tight election result has shifted attention to ethnic Albanian parties, which together won 20 MPs and are seen as possibly holding the key to the formation of a new government in Macedonia.

According to the latest results, the ruling VMRO DPMNE party won 51 of the 120 seats in parliament and the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, won 49.

Macedonia's election campaign formally started on Monday and over the next 20 days the parties will be holding rallies and round tables and trying to visit as many places as they can.

An incident at the weekend when Ali Ahmeti, the head of the junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, narrowly escaped an attack by an angry mob in the town of Kumanovo could be the beginning of an outburst of discontent among voters, observers suggested.

An old mass grave, believed to date from the Second Balkan War, was discovered near the family house of Ali Ahmeti, the head of Macedonia’s junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration.

Lawyers for 37 defendants accused of participating in the shootout with police that left 18 people dead in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo want a retired police general who is now head of the small opposition Dignity party, Stojance Angelov, and the head of the junior party in the country's ruling coalition, Democratic Union for Integration chief Ali Ahmeti, to appear as witnesses.

The wiretapped telephone conversations, allegedly containing the voices of Ali Ahmeti, the head of the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, and some of his associates, were published by an anonymous source on a Facebook page called Pronto MK.

What are alleged to be the voices of former vice Prime Minister Musa Xhaferi and DUI MP Ermira Mehmeti can also be heard in the recordings.

Ethnic Albanian opposition parties in Macedonia are organizing a protest march on May 9 in the northern town of Kumanovo, to mark the first anniversary of the bloody events there that led to the death of 14 citizens and eight policemen.

Macedonia's ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said it was pulling its ministers from the provisional government and giving its head, Ali Ahmeti, authority to decide the next steps.

About 100 ethnic Albanians protested against the erection of a new tall cross in the Macedonian capital, spending Thursday night in tents set up at the site where the cross is to be built.

The protest was backed by the junior ruling party, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski submitted his resignation to the Speaker of Parliament Trajko Veljanoski on Friday.

The resignation of Gruevski is part of the political agreements reached between the main political parties of Macedonia in June and July last year with the mediation of the EU.