Ismet Ramadani

Legal and political experts in Macedonia warn that if the Special Prosecution, SJO, is forced to stop raising new indictments in June 2017, as the original deadline predicts, Macedonia's longstanding crisis  will go back to square one.

Without the prospect for justice being done for many alleged wrongdoings, they say the crisis will only worsen.

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.