Latest News & Developments

[Philosopher]

Again Macedonians seem to miss the point. Again pointing the finger at someone else, and looking up to yet another "big brother" to bail them out.

Macedonia did not end up where it is now because of the "West".

From day one, they allowed others to make decisions for them. The let Greece pick there name and flag. They let Albanian terrorists write their constitution. They let their political leaders do as they please. The average Macedonian refuses to accept they, and they are to blame for everything that is going on.

Just as in life, when you how strength, typically you get respect. When you show weakness, people ignore you.

If from day one they refused to be bullied by Greece, by now there wouldn't be e name issue. The only reason it still exists is because Macedonians let it exist, we give it legitimacy when our brilliant leaders say that our name is negotiable.

Why are Albanians ruining amok, because we appeased them, we reinforced that if they act out violently, they get what they want. the Macedonian army could have acted swiftly and decisively, killed the terrorists, and through their own terms and means, came up with a political solution, not under blackmail form terrorists.

When form day one their political "leaders" abused power, committed treason, went against popular sentiment, they could have removed them.

Macedonians all act like a bunch of helpless sobbing little bitches. That's the reason the world keeps pissing on us. To think that all we need is a different sugar daddy, is not only naive, but its the same type of thinking that has pushed Macedonia to this state in the first place.

How we went from 30,000 men conquering millions with their bare hands, to a nation scared of its own shadow is perplexing.

Wow. Your most brilliant post to date. Bravo Gocka.

[Philosopher]

Poor Gruevski, he can only do so much. And surrounded by idiots, no less. And Russia can save us. I'm beginning to feel ashamed to be Macedonian.

Unfortunately, I know of Macedonians who think in these terms. That and the whole union with a Greater Serbia or a neo Yugoslavia revival.

[Gocka]

Haha did I win Seljak na godinata? Its a K15 classic if any one you haven't seen it.

Macedonians don't believe in truth, there is only what is personally good for them, everything else is just noise.

Normal people get upset when they are told a lie. Macedonians get upset when they hear the truth. You just made them cry Gocka I think this description should win an award.

Welcome to the club, I think I got there about a year ago.

Poor Gruevski, he can only do so much. And surrounded by idiots, no less. And Russia can save us. I'm beginning to feel ashamed to be Macedonian.

Vangelovski had it right from day one, Macedonians are a case study in Slave Mentality. They are always looking around to see who's bitch they can be, god forbid they did it on their own.

Astounding isn't it, and this persistent delusional infatuation with Russia is mind boggling to say the least.

The dig at DPNE was interesting coming from MINA, although they did somehow end up putting Gruevski on a pedestal...

Man I really must have said something right to get your praise

Wow. Your most brilliant post to date. Bravo Gocka.

[Gocka]

This is directed at Dragan, not because I want to single him out, but because as far as I know, he is the only active member who actually lives in Macedonia. If we have any other members out there who live in Macedonia, who would like to answer this question, please feel free.

I have a series of questions for anyone currently living in Macedonia. This is not meant to attack or embarrass. I am genuinely curious about the thought process of a person who is actually in the middle of this mess.


As a citizen and resident of Macedonia, Who do you think is at fault for the current state of the Nation, not just the current political crisis, but the nation as a whole.



- Who was to blame for FYROM, and the ventilator
- Who was to blame for 2001 and the FA
- Who was to blame for the poor economic conditions
- Who is to blame for the patronage system
- Who is to blame for corruption
- Who is to blame for the current political crisis.


As a citizen and resident, what responsibilities do you feel you have.
-Given the current situation, what role do you think you should play personally in order to resolve the crisis.
- What responsibilities do you feel belong to others.

As a citizen and resident, what would you like to happen now. How do you want this crisis to end, what should the outcome be.
- What should the government look like
- What laws do you want implemented or changed

As a citizen and resident, what would have to happen for you to feel like you would want to live in Macedonia and raise a family there.
- Paint an ideal but realistic picture of what the country has to be like for you to not want to leave.

I really want the honest reflections of a person who has lived through and is living through this first hand.

[Vangelovski]

This is directed at Dragan, not because I want to single him out, but because as far as I know, he is the only active member who actually lives in Macedonia. If we have any other members out there who live in Macedonia, who would like to answer this question, please feel free.

I have a series of questions for anyone currently living in Macedonia. This is not meant to attack or embarrass. I am genuinely curious about the thought process of a person who is actually in the middle of this mess.


As a citizen and resident of Macedonia, Who do you think is at fault for the current state of the Nation, not just the current political crisis, but the nation as a whole.



- Who was to blame for FYROM, and the ventilator
- Who was to blame for 2001 and the FA
- Who was to blame for the poor economic conditions
- Who is to blame for the patronage system
- Who is to blame for corruption
- Who is to blame for the current political crisis.


As a citizen and resident, what responsibilities do you feel you have.
-Given the current situation, what role do you think you should play personally in order to resolve the crisis.
- What responsibilities do you feel belong to others.

As a citizen and resident, what would you like to happen now. How do you want this crisis to end, what should the outcome be.
- What should the government look like
- What laws do you want implemented or changed

As a citizen and resident, what would have to happen for you to feel like you would want to live in Macedonia and raise a family there.
- Paint an ideal but realistic picture of what the country has to be like for you to not want to leave.

I really want the honest reflections of a person who has lived through and is living through this first hand.

Someone else.

[DraganOfStip]

This is directed at Dragan, not because I want to single him out, but because as far as I know, he is the only active member who actually lives in Macedonia. If we have any other members out there who live in Macedonia, who would like to answer this question, please feel free.

I have a series of questions for anyone currently living in Macedonia. This is not meant to attack or embarrass. I am genuinely curious about the thought process of a person who is actually in the middle of this mess.

I will answer this just to satisfy your curiosity,you have been a great contributor to this forum and on most matters we seem to agree,even though I don't think this post qualifies for the Latest News And Developments thread.
However,I will only write what I'm about to write once,because on most of these issues I have indirectly answered before and I really really really hate to repeat myself Gocka.

As a citizen and resident of Macedonia, Who do you think is at fault for the current state of the Nation, not just the current political crisis, but the nation as a whole.

Indirectly,the politicians.Every single government from the independence onward,no exceptions.
Directly,the people.Because at the end of the day,they elected those very same politicians.See my signature for reference.

- Who was to blame for FYROM, and the ventilator

The governmet at the time.Because they accepted both without asking the people of this country first.

- Who was to blame for 2001 and the FA

Indirectly,the international community.We received nothing for accepting hundreds of thousands Kosovars during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia except a big tap on the shoulder and thumbs up.Those very same Kosovars were the spark that ignited the conflict.And during that conflict,again the international community had the final word whether our armed forces should act or not.And when you have your hands tied you can't do much and are eventually doomed to lose.
Directly - the government,especially the Ministries of Defence and Interior,with the biggest burdeon falling on the shoulders of the then-president Boris Trajkovski as the supreme commander of our armed forces.If they had the bigger balls to act determined and wipe out the terorists instead of dancing to NATO's tune,today would be a different story.

- Who was to blame for the poor economic conditions

Again,the corrupt Macedonian politicians from our independence onward,especially SDSM who held the offices in most of the privatization period where almost 200 000 people lost their jobs so that they could get their pockets full.This process was continued by DPMNE as soon as they stuck their fat butts in the office chairs.
It would be fair to also add the Greek economic embargo of the early 90's and the aforementioned Kosovo refugee crisis.

- Who is to blame for the patronage system

This is a remnant from the communist age which continued into the democracy.Patronage is still the most effective way to win and hold on to voters.So i would again say - the politicians in office.

- Who is to blame for corruption

I can't give a decisive answer to that because corruption is a global problem,not just Macedonian.I doubt there is a single government that isn't corrupted to some extent.If i had to pick,i'd say - human greed.

- Who is to blame for the current political crisis.

DPMNE and SDSM.Definitely.
DPMNE - They were so shellshocked by the leak of their crimes caught on tape that they turned on their entire propaganda machinery and threw (and still are) everything they had to discredit the protesters,the special prosecutors,to invent internal and external enemies etc etc in a desperate attempt to save their own skin.
SDSM - They know they would never ever win another election cycle so they used the so-called "bombs" to get sympathy and votes,just like they're now using the revolted people that protest every day to infiltrate in the crowd and show themselves as leaders of the revolt to gain popularity.Weren't they that wanted early elections a year back in the first place?Now they keep prolonging them as far as they can so that they have a chance to win more votes the more DPMNE crimes are exposed in the meantime.

As a citizen and resident, what responsibilities do you feel you have.
-Given the current situation, what role do you think you should play personally in order to resolve the crisis.
- What responsibilities do you feel belong to others.

Every single citizen,not just me,has the responsibility to express his revolt against the current regime in power and against those who try to impose themselves as their saviors.
A person's democratic right is to protest.I participated in several of them here in my hometown but i stopped when I saw SDSM keeps running the frontlines and the rest of the people didn't openly distance themselves from those scum.If those bastards want to protest let them organize a separate protest and leave the random citizens express their revolt without any party influence and labeling.
I find this whole paint throwing thing counterproductive and completely unnecessary because to clean up the paint more money from the budget are wasted (money that eventually come from the very same people that throw it too),and it also allows the DPMNE propaganda media to present a terrible picture of the protesters.Simply standing in front of the building is enough,let them see you,let them understand you don't agree with what they're doing.No need for vandalism whatsoever.

As a citizen and resident, what would you like to happen now. How do you want this crisis to end, what should the outcome be.
- What should the government look like
- What laws do you want implemented or changed

I want DPMNE and SDSM out of the picture.They have brought enough suffering to their people,let someone else run the show for a while,see how that goes for a change.
As far as laws are concerned,I'm not a lawyer nor an expert of law,but they should try copying laws from successful countries.If they work there,there's no reason why they shouldn't work here as well.

As a citizen and resident, what would have to happen for you to feel like you would want to live in Macedonia and raise a family there.
- Paint an ideal but realistic picture of what the country has to be like for you to not want to leave.

The key reason why a lot of people are moving out is the low living standard.Wages are low,prices are going up every day,and every man has it's limit of how much he can take.My limit was exceeded last summer when my wife had to get a sick leave when our daughter had some renal problems and she had to spend a couple weeks in a hospital and then at home with her.So for half a month of work and the other half on sick leave she received only about 10 AUD of salary.That's when I snapped and decided enough was enough.
If we had a better living standard i believe most people would stay here.
I'm not a greedy man.I don't need to party all the time,go to tropical resorts on vacation,drive a super modern car,watch TV on a 60 inch screen etc.If me and my wife had better paid jobs,jobs that would enable us to have our stomachs full,our bills paid,our child provided with fine education etc then I would stay.But the situation here isn't improving.It hasn't for 25 years now.And I'm sick of waiting.

[Gocka]

Thank you Dragan.

I realize you may have said all these things at one point or another, and certainly not in this format. Although I do not agree with everything you have said, I certainly appreciate the candid honesty. It was brave to stick your neck out like this, potentially inviting criticism.

You quenched my immediate curiosity, unfortunately now I have a dozen other questions, but those I will save for another time.

I will not criticize you, all I will say is I hope that you ponder these questions again sometime.

[DraganOfStip]

It was brave to stick your neck out like this, potentially inviting criticism.

All I did was speak the truth.The only ones that can criticize what I wrote are DPMNE and SDSM sympathizers here.And there aren't many of those.Even then,I couldn't give less of a f**k what they think.

[DraganOfStip]

Breaking news

President Ivanov withdrew the pardons for the remaining 33 people thus totally annulling his controversial abolitions from 12th April.

http://www.dw.com/mk/%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D1%98%D0%B0-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5-%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0/a-19310373

[Gocka]

What an interesting circus it is!

Here is what is going through my head.

What logic led to the pardons being issued in the first place, did DPMNE heads really think the average Macedonian is that stupid and that apathetic that they would be totally indifferent to a mass pardoning, especially when everyone and their mother knows that illegal acts were committed.

Then when the first reversal happened, what inspired that, did they underestimate how much it would piss off the citizenry, was there external pressure? Then why only reverse half of the pardons, did they think it would be enough to appease people, and they would forget about the rest?

Now we finally have a full reversal, but why? Was it the citizens? Was it external forces? Or do they think they have enough clout in the courts to win whatever suits are brought against them anyway.

Then there was Grujo pretending that he had no idea that Ivanov would issue the pardons in the first place.

Finally, one has to ask, what now? I know there was supposed to be massive protests in Skopje, over the weekend, or sometime this week, but I don't know if they even happened? Was this a move to temporarily calm down the protests, will citizens be fooled and consider this a victory and just fade away, or will they continue to demand more?

[DraganOfStip]

Finally, one has to ask, what now? I know there was supposed to be massive protests in Skopje, over the weekend, or sometime this week, but I don't know if they even happened? Was this a move to temporarily calm down the protests, will citizens be fooled and consider this a victory and just fade away, or will they continue to demand more?

From what i could read protests will continue albeit in a different form (I guess we'll see which form will that be in the following days) and the protesters have other demands such as resignation of Ivanov,a guarantee from the Constitutional Court that the Special Prosecutors will have their hands untied to continue processing the investigations,a transitional government that can organize credible elections after this chaos clears out, and release and stopping of all prosecutions against all protesters currently in custody.Let's see what tomorrow brings...

[Tomche Makedonche]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/forget-federalizing-macedonia-ahmeti-says-06-02-2016

Forget Federalising Macedonia, Says Albanian Party Chief

Ethnic Albanian party leader Ali Ahmeti told BIRN that calls to federalise Macedonia are impractical, and dismissed claims that his DUI is a poodle of the ruling VMRO DPMNE.

Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration, the long-term junior party in the Macedonian governing colaition, has come out against growing calls in the ethnic Albanian community for federalisation, calling the idea impractical.

Ahmeti said dividing Macedonia into two federal units would be tricky because so many people live in ethnically-mixed environments.

“To discuss such topics, you must know the configuration, the geography of a country, its settlements,” he told BIRN in an interview.

“How can you create a federation or confederation in which these two [federal units] have defined borders and territories?” he asked.

Ahmeti, who led an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force in Macedonia during a six-month insurgency in 2001, said the best solution remained full implementation of the internationally-brokered Ohrid Framework Accord of 2001, which guaranteed more rights to Albanians who comprise at least a quarter of the population.

The Ohrid Accord, in theory, Ahmeti said, should solve the main problems between Macedonians and Albanians, “so that the two communities are equal”.

However, Ahmeti concedes that 15 years after the signing of the deal, implementation in some areas has become stuck.

“We still have so much work to do,” he said. “In reality, it’s normal to face difficulties, obstacles.”

Regarding calls to make Albanian an official language throughout Macedonia, not just in areas where Albanians are numerous, Ahmeti predicted that this will happen “very soon” and is “just a matter of time”.

He dismissed accusations that ethnic Macedonian politicians have duped his party into accepting the current solution whereby Albanian is the second official language only in those municipalities where Albanians make up more than 20 per cent of the population.

Not a ‘servant’ party

Ahmeti, whose DUI party entered the government led by Nikola Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE party in 2008, says his party rightly decided to stay in government, even after the opposition last year revealed wiretaps which suggested top officials had engaged in a range of serious crimes.

“People voted for us to represent them. They do not vote for us to walk the streets… Our absence from this government would cause a completely different situation... with uncontrollable, chaotic implications for Macedonia and for the DUI,” Ahmeti said.

Ahmeti denied ethnic Albanian opposition claims that the DUI had become a servant of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party.

Last month, DUI MPs joined those from the main ruling party in voting to dismiss opposition ministers from the interim government, which had been tasked with organizing early elections, now postponed.

“The DUI is not a servant to VMRO-DPMNE or to the SDSM [the opposition Social Democrats]. The DUI tries to fulfill its own platform,” Ahmeti said.

He said the party’s actions on the ground showed that its policies were not always in line with those of VMRO DPMNE.

“We did not support VMRO over June 5 [the early election date sought by VMRO DPMNE],” he said.

“After the presidential pardon [controversially issued on April 12] we sat with international representatives and VMRO-DPMNE on and told Gruevski that the DUI will not participate in the June 5 elections because our party does not want to participate in internationally disputed elections.”

The Kumanovo clashes

Turning to the bloody shootout in May 2015 in the town of Kumanovo between ethnic Albanian gunmen and police, which left 18 dead, Ahmeti says there was not much he could do to halt the two days of violence.

“It’s still a mystery to me who organized, planned, encouraged it. I have stated several times that I know some of them [the gunmen]. They were my soldiers [in the 2001 conflict]. I feel sorry for them, their lives and their families,” Ahmeti said.

Ahmeti said the group had contacted him on the day, as the clashes started, but by then it was too late for him to prevent an escalation.

“They called me and I did as much as I could do,” Ahmeti said. However, he added: “By 10am, three policemen had been killed and things had already gone too far. Afterwards, all efforts were focused on how to halt the fighting but those [the gunmen] inside had to take that decision… And they asked to surrender.”

Ahmeti repeated that if the gunmen had contacted him earlier he would have advised them not to resort to armed action.

However, he dismissed speculation that Gruevski’s embattled government in effect staged the shootout, to distract attention from the mounting pressure on VMRO DPMNE created by the opposition’s release of the wiretaps.

“I do not believe the rumours, many of them being directed against me,” he said.

“They say Ahmeti betrayed them [the gunmen] and Ahmeti was the traitor. Had they contacted me and asked me… they would not have made such a move because it was not a well-thought or analysed move,” Ahmeti said, regarding the shootout.

He also denied that he was not welcome in the Albanian part of Kumanovo that was devastated by the fighting, and said he had not visited the area because of his busy schedule.

“The important thing is that the houses [damaged in the shootout] have been reconstructed,” Ahmeti insisted.

Ahmeti said it was also not the DUI’s fault that no ethnic Albanian judges are involved in the sensitive trial of the Kumanovo gunmen. Ethnic Albanian judges had themselves hesitated to become associated with the trial, he said.

“In highly dangerous [court] processes, people hesitate before getting involved,” Ahmeti noted.

Regarding claims made by lawyers of the 29 suspects, that their clients have been physically abused in detention, Ahmeti insisted that his party is monitoring their treatment through the Justice Ministry and the Ombudsman’s office, which the DUI controls.

“We have taken measures so that this [abuse] does not occur. According to the information I have from the Ministry of Justice, such cases can’t occur. If there are any, they [the police] can be punished,” he said.

While admitting that past court cases against ethnic Albanians in Macedonia had “looked suspicious” because the trials “lacked transparency” and seemed like “political set-ups”, Ahmeti insisted that the judiciary in Macedonia was not under political pressure, and that his party was doing its best to reform this sector, acting on EU recommendations.

[Tomche Makedonche]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/macedonia-presidents-scrapping-of-amnesty-unlikely-to-ease-crisis-1465321172

Macedonia President’s Scrapping of Amnesty Unlikely to Ease Crisis

Pardons for politicians in corruption probe fueled street and diplomatic protests

By Marcus Walker and Laurence Norman
June 7, 2016 1:39 p.m. ET

Macedonia faces a long road out of its political crisis, despite the president’s decision this week to rescind his controversial amnesty for politicians under investigation for alleged corruption.

The small and troubled Balkan country, which has a pivotal role in guarding Europe’s back door against migration, has been the scene of a tense standoff between demonstrators and the ruling party since President Gjorge Ivanov declared the amnesty in April.

The blanket pardons for top politicians, who were under investigation by a special prosecutor amid accusations of electoral fraud, illegal wiretapping, extortion, and other abuses of power, triggered weeks of street protests in the capital, Skopje, as well as diplomatic protests from the U.S. and European Union.

That pressure appears to have prompted Mr. Ivanov’s reversal, removing an obstacle to the criminal investigation into some of the country’s most powerful people, including former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. On Monday, Mr. Ivanov said he remained convinced that his amnesty could have contributed to “national reconciliation” but that the opposition had exploited it to score political points.

Mr. Ivanov’s about-face “allows the special prosecutor to continue her work, but it will not bring an end to the crisis,” said Ana Petruseva, editor of Balkan Insight, a website on the region’s politics. “The crisis has plenty of elements that were there before Ivanov came up with the pardons,” she said.

Macedonia was once viewed as a poster child for transition to democracy but its governance is widely seen as having deteriorated over the past decade, with corruption rising and media freedom declining. The ruling VMRO party controls a public sector where many view political loyalty as the key to finding jobs.

Last year, VMRO leaders including Mr. Gruevski were implicated in a corruption scandal after leaked audiotapes allegedly showed them discussing a variety of abuses of power.

Mr. Gruevski denied wrongdoing, dismissed the tapes as fake, and said foreign intelligence services were trying to destabilize the country. Under an EU-brokered deal in 2015 between VMRO and the opposition, Mr. Gruevski stepped aside as prime minister this year pending elections.

European officials say VMRO still has much to do to put the country back on track to become a Western-style competitive democracy with a functioning market economy.

The EU’s commissioner for relations with candidates to join the bloc, Johannes Hahn, called on Monday for Macedonia’s leaders to resume the political overhauls they signed up to under last year’s EU-sponsored deal. Allowing fair elections is urgently needed “to move the country back to the path of the rule of law and Euro-Atlantic integration,” Mr. Hahn said.

Last month, the government bowed to domestic and foreign pressure and postponed elections due on June 5. The EU was concerned that the vote would have taken place with inaccurate voter lists, which would have given VMRO a major advantage. European diplomats are now pressing the government to hold elections next year, based on a cleaned-up voter list and more balanced coverage in the government-dominated media.

The EU’s role in Macedonia is complicated by Europe’s reliance on the country to cut off the Balkan migration route, which nearly a million refugees and other migrants have used to reach Germany and other European countries over the past year, fueling an anti-immigration backlash in much of Western Europe.

Macedonia’s construction of a heavily policed razor-wire fence along its border with neighboring Greece drew protests from humanitarian groups, but sharply cut the numbers of migrants reaching Europe’s north.

Internally, critics say Macedonia has become an example of a wider trend in Europe’s former Communist east, where several countries are moving away, in differing degrees, from liberal democracy toward authoritarian nationalism.

Some EU officials and political analysts say a major reason for the backsliding has been Macedonia’s fading hopes of joining the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.The prospect of joining both has been a powerful incentive for post-Communist countries to democratize. But Macedonia’s EU and NATO membership talks have been blocked by Greece, which objects to the country using the name Macedonia.

Greece believes the name, which harks back to the ancient kingdom of Alexander the Great, is Greek and should be reserved for its own region of that name.

Greece’s continued veto over accession talks limits the EU’s influence over VMRO, says James Ker-Lindsay, a Southeast Europe scholar at the London School of Economics. Unable to offer membership, “the EU doesn’t know how to bring about transformation,” he says.

EU officials argue they do have influence in Skopje, citing Mr. Ivanov’s reversal of his pardon as evidence. EU officials say they have also warned VMRO leaders that they could face sanctions including travel bans if the government interferes further with the corruption probe.

[Risto the Great]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti...ays-06-02-2016
The Ohrid Accord, in theory, Ahmeti said, should solve the main problems between Macedonians and Albanians, “so that the two communities are equal”.

But they are not equal.

[Tomche Makedonche]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/german-envoy-optimistic-on-macedonian-crisis-talks-06-08-2016-1

German Envoy Optimistic on Macedonian Crisis Talks

The German envoy sent to help resolve the Macedonian crisis, Johannes Haindl, said there was a way out if guidelines from last year's EU-brokered agreement are followed, but warned time was running out.
Sinisa Jakov Marusic - 08/06/2016

Haindl said on Wednesday after inter-party talks had restarted that the way out of the crisis is through the "reaffirmation" of the rules and principles agreed last year in the EU-brokered accord which was supposed to restore political stability.

"However, the bad news is that this process is blocked," Haindl told media in Skopje after meeting with the country's top political leaders.

He also warned that "time is running out" to find a solution.

Haindl was speaking on the second day of his two-day visit to Skopje, after meeting the heads of the country’s four main parties and the Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov.

While little is known officially about the content of Haindl's talks with party leaders, it is believed there are several points of conflict between the government and the opposition that to be addressed.

A source from the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, told BIRN that the main points of dispute "remain the timing of the formation of a new interim government" that will be tasked with carrying out reforms to ensure truly free elections.

While the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party insists that the interim government is formed 100 days prior to elections, the opposition insists at following last year's agreement to the letter and forming such a government at six months ahead of the polls.

As part of last year's EU-brokered crisis accord, Macedonia established an interim government that included ministers from the opposition and was supposed to implement the reforms before an election on June 5.

But on May 18, Macedonia's parliament voted to postpone the election following concerns that the reform priorities had not been met.

The ruling majority in parliament dismissed opposition ministers from the interim government and replaced them with deputies from the ruling VMRO DPMNE party the same day.

Another point of dispute is the VMRO DPMNE's alleged insistence that this time the SDSM guarantees in advance that it would will accept the current electoral roll before the elections.

The opposition, as well as EU and US representatives, insisted on postponing the June 5 elections when it became clear that efforts to clean the electoral roll of fake voters – as well as media reforms aimed at ensuring balanced reporting and mechanisms to prevent voter intimidation - had not been implemented.

Meanwhile the opposition is now demanding additional guarantees of its own. It insists that the Constitutional Court must rule by June 18 that the Special Prosecution, tasked with investigating high-level crime, is not unconstitutional and is not at risk of being shut down.

The opposition and anti-government protesters who have been demonstrating across the country see the Constitutional Court, which they claim is in the hands of VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, as a threat to the work of the Special Prosecution, which was set up as part of last year's crisis deal.

Haindl’s visit to Macedonia, his third in a one month, comes after President Gjorge Ivanov removed one key obstacle to the resumption of inter-party talks, by fully withdrawing his May pardons of 56 top politicians and their associates, mostly VMRO DPMNE members

The pardons that effectively blocked the work of the Special Prosecution and sparked massive anti-government protests.

The crisis in Macedonia revolves around opposition claims that the government formerly led by VMRO DPMNE chief Gruevski was responsible for the illegal wiretapping of over 20,000 people, amongst other crimes.

Gruevski, who took power in 2006 and resigned as prime minister earlier this year under the terms of the EU-brokered accord, claims that unnamed foreign intelligence services “fabricated” the wiretapping tapes and gave them to the opposition to destabilise the country.