Thewesternbalkans
On the eve of the regular parliamentary elections, the government of Dimitar Kovacevski (the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia – SDSM) in the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM) resigned, and on 28.01.2024 the country’s parliament elected Talat Xhaferi to head a caretaker government. T. Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian and former commander of the Macedonian National Liberation Army, closely associated with the ethnic separatist militia Kosovo Liberation Army, will have the main task to secure fair and free parliamentary elections on May 8, simultaneously with the second round of the presidential elections, which first round will be on April 24.
Ali Ahmeti, leader of the largest Albanian party in North Macedonia, the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), whose representative is T. Xhaferi, the former speaker of the North Macedonian parliament, assessed the moment as “historic”, although the government will have limited functions and its mandate will continue until the election results are announced by the State Election Commission. “This day is historic because we are becoming a state with an equal society. We will take responsibility to lead,” said Ahmeti.
The largest opposition party in RNM – VMRO-DPMNE, will also participate in the interim government, but refused to support the election of T. Xhafery as prime minister and predicted great difficulties in the work of the cabinet. The opposition parties of the Albanian political bloc also did not support Xhaferi.
COMMENT: The ethnic Albanians in the new RNM government, together with the Prime Minister, are 11 (including one ethnic Albanian from the SDSM), out of a total of 21 cabinet members. The Albanian minority in RNM for the first time not only has a prime minister of the country, but also a majority in the government. This can be assessed not only as a “historic day”, but also as a turning point in the history of the young state, in which, according to official data, Albanians make up about 29.5% of the population. After having Albanians as Defense Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Speaker of the Parliament, RNM now also has an Albanian Prime Minister.
The candidacy of an Albanian for the prime minister’s chair of the technical government was part of a coalition agreement between SDSM and DUI in 2020. But it is possible that an Albanian will head the next regular government as well – something the Albanian political bloc has been striving for years.
The SDSM has been ruling North Macedonia since 2017, but it is now very weak and if it were to run for elections on its own, it would most likely not win them. Sociological polls give a 2:1 advantage for VMRO-DPNE over SDSM. But if there is a SDSM-DUI coalition, everything is possible. It is no coincidence that the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, pointed out on January 28 on Platform X that Ali Ahmeti is the person with the most merit to be the first Albanian Prime Minister of North Macedonia.
The role of T. Xhaferi is probably to “warm” the place of A. Ahmeti and prepare the Macedonian society to get used to the future political dominance of the ethnic Albanians at the top of the state.
The successive efforts of the USA, NATO and the EU towards full political representation of the Albanian minority in Macedonia after its separation from Yugoslavia have been driven by the expectation of stabilization of the country and the entire Western Balkans region. In the next period, the Albanian political representatives can contribute to this stabilization in helping to overcome the current difficulties in joining the RNM to the EU – to achieve a compromise between the major political parties on European integration and to adopt changes in the RNM constitution for the inclusion of citizens, who live within the borders of the country, but are part of six other nations, including the Bulgarians.
