North Macedonia holds parliamentary elections on May 8, 2024, a technical government with an Albanian prime minister is expected in January

Parliamentary elections in North Macedonia will be held on May 8, 2024, together with the second round of presidential elections. The first round for the election of the country's president will take place on April 24.

This is what the political parties decided on Monday in a meeting that was called by the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovacevski, at the same time the chairman of the ruling Social Democratic League.

"Given the legal deadlines and religious holidays that are in this period, we agreed on these election dates. Finally, after 17 years, we will have regular parliamentary elections and this speaks of good policies of the Government", said Kovacevski.

One hundred days before the elections, or on January 28, a technical government headed by an Albanian prime minister will be formed, which will be proposed by the Democratic Union for Integration party, led by Ali Ahmeti.

VMRO DPPMNE had requested that there be no technical government, which is being practiced in the last three election cycles based on what is known as the "Perzhina agreement".

"The issue of the technical government was opened at this meeting, and from what was heard there is no consensus to abolish the technical government, even though we as the opposition have requested such a thing", said the head of VMRO DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski .

Kovacevski said that in the meeting with the political parties there was an "extremely broad consensus" on the remarks on the electoral legislation, namely on the changes to the Electoral Code in accordance with the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR, which are related to the financing of the parties and other issues for the smooth running of the elections. election process.

However, the Albanian opposition left the meeting after it was abandoned by the Speaker of the Assembly of North Macedonia, Talat Xhaferi, who, according to the opposition parties, "did not want to talk about the opposition's request to be represented by a member in the Commission State Elections".

The Albanian opposition, which consists of three political parties, requested early elections, that is, before the date already set by the other parties, but their request was not taken into account by the other parties.

The date of the elections is expected to be decreed by the end of December at the latest.

Even though the setting of the date for holding new elections extinguished all hopes for the approval of constitutional changes, Prime Minister Kovacvski invited the parties to fulfill this obligation, which depends on the country's integration into the European Union.

The constitutional changes must be approved before an EU summit this month so that talks on membership in the bloc can begin.

They have to do with the inclusion of the Bulgarian minority in the preamble of the constitution, as a state-forming people, based on the agreement with Bulgaria on the choice of contests for the Macedonian language and identity.

"Any delay in starting negotiations with the EU and putting this process and our full membership in the EU into oblivion is an extremely irresponsible and dangerous political decision," Kovacevski said. REL