President of Macedonia

Zoran Zaev's SDSM party has announced that Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov will receive a letter from the newly elected parliament speaker Talat Xhaferi.

The letter contains the demand to give Zaev the mandate to form a government.

The office of Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov on Monday said the obstacles preventing him from awarding a mandate to the opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev had not been removed.

This is despite calls by the opposition and the international community for the President not to further delay the formation of a new government.

FYROM (Macedonia) is sinking deeper and deeper into a severe political and institutional crisis. Three months on from snap parliamentary elections held in December, a new government still hasn't been formed. Speaking to Sputnik, Svetin Chilimanov, former advisor to the Macedonian president, warned that the crisis may lead to the country's disintegration.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov has sent a letter to EU member-states, NATO's secretary-general, and the country's "strategic partners - the US and Turkey."

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov on Wednesday announced he would not give opposition SDSM leader Zoran Zaev a mandate to put together a new government.

"Neither my conscience nor the Constitution allow me to do that," Ivanov said.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov on Monday entrusted Nikola Gruevski with a fresh mandate to form a new government after his VMRO DPMNE party narrowly won the December 11 elections.

He has 20 days to secure a majority of 61 in the 120-seat parliament and present a new team to parliament, or return the mandate.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov on Friday moved to scrap the amnesty of nearly half of the 56 people who had been facing proceedings in a wiretapping affair.

With a decree signed by Ivanov, the decisin is applied to 22 of those involved, all politically exposed people, according to Utrinski vesnik.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has predicted a gloomy political future for Macedonia, casting doubt whether the early elections scheduled for June 05 will take place at all.

"Macedonia will be permanently destabilized in my opinion, let's hope I am wrong," Dnevnik.bg quotes him as saying after a national security council meeting.

Skopje police confirmed the arrest of twelve people on Wednesday, after a group of people stormed President Gjorge Ivanov's office in central Skopje demolishing its interior.

The reporter for Plusinfo news portal Goran Naumovski was injured during the scuffles.

An important progress towards solving the political crisis in Macedonia was made on Monday as resigned Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski confirmed that early parliamentary elections will be held on April 24 as had been agreed in the summer of last year.