Either SDSM will offer support to DUI candidates in Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, Kicevo, Chair in the first round of elections or with the local elections there will be early parliamentary elections because DUI leader Ali Ahmeti will break up the government coalition. Ahmeti will put this on the table in front of the government partner Zoran Zaev at the meeting to be held this week, says a senior DUI official for Plusinfo.mk.
The threat follows after first, the smaller government partner Besa, unofficially issued an ultimatum that they will leave the Government if Zaev supports Ahmeti in the first round of elections for those municipalities and after the SDSM leader announced today that he is seriously in play in Tetovo and several other municipalities important for Albanians, to nominate their own mayor candidates.
Whether the Albanian partners are building positions before the final agreement for participation in the local elections through ultimatums or are they serious in their intention to dissolve the Government will be clearer after the meeting between Zaev and Ahmeti. It has already been announced that Zaev will be in trouble with his Albanian partners for the lack of support in the upcoming local elections.
On the other hand, a senior SDSM official told Plusinfo that talks are underway with academician Abdulmenaf Bexheti and businessman Lulzim Destani as a candidate for mayor of Tetovo nominated by the Social Democrats. In that case, the comment of the official is for whom the citizens of Tetovo will vote for Teuta Arifi from DUI, Bilal Kasami from Besa or for Bexheti or possibly Destani.
That the local elections will complicate the relations of the government partners is more than clear, it is uncertain what Zaev and Ahmeti will decide, ie whether the battle for the municipal sheriffs will be stronger than the survival of the Government.
“If there is no support from SDSM in the first round of local elections, then there is no Government. Kasami, who has three MPs, and DUI – 15, cannot blackmail whether SDSM and DUI will have a pre-election coalition for those municipalities. Besa does not have the weight of DUI and that is incorrect. Ahmeti – not Zaev – is the one who decides,” the DUI official told Plusinfo.
