National patriots who won the local elections are trying to overthrow the Maidan government of North Macedonia
The opposition national-patriotic party VMRO-DPMNE took the initiative to submit a vote of no confidence in the Assembly to the Maidan government of Zoran Zaev, who resigned.
In alliance with the Levica (Left) party, the national patriots intend to form a majority, displacing the ruling pro-Western Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Deputy Chairman of the VMRO-DPMNE parliamentary faction, Alexander Nikolovski, expressed confidence that the deputies will express no confidence in the government and gain the necessary 61 votes for this. According to him, the opposition coalition is currently negotiating with several more deputies to implement the procedure.
In turn, former Prime Minister and former SDSM leader Zoran Zaev, who resigned after failing in the local elections, stated that his Maidan SDSM does not intend to leave power.
“There are people and parties in the country who will not allow VMRO-DPMNR President Christian Mickoski, former party leader Nikola Gruevski and Levica leader Dimitar Apasiev to take back and destroy the country. Our cause is both civil and sovereign! I know our citizens and our legislators are very proud of this. Our values are democracy, freedom, solidarity and unity!” Zaev wrote on Facebook.
Let us recall that Zoran Zaev and his Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), in alliance with local Albanian parties, came to power as a result of a street Maidan that began in 2015.
The reason for it was the policy of the conservative leadership of Macedonia, which refused to join the sanctions against Russia, refused to make concessions to Greece regarding the name of the country, and to Bulgaria regarding the language (Bulgarians believe that Macedonians speak the Western dialect of the Bulgarian language), and also expressed readiness to take part in the Russian South Stream project.
Zaev's street protests were supported by the United States, the EU, as well as George Soros, as a result of which the liberals managed to achieve the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, despite the president's veto, to form a government alone, give serious preferences to the Albanian majority, and then achieve a change in the name of the country.
It should be noted that the steps of Zaev and the team met with massive misunderstanding and indignation of the majority of Macedonians, who held street actions “For a United Macedonia” in all cities of the country, tried to storm the parliament, and also failed the referendum on renaming.
However, the “democratic” leadership responded to the opinion of the majority with repressions against dissidents and high-profile trials.
Zaev managed to achieve the country's entry into NATO, now he is trying to bring it into the EU, but this process is so far hampered by neighboring Bulgaria, which denies North Macedonia a separate national, linguistic, cultural and historical identity from the Bulgarian one.
Moreover, after the return of VMRO-DMNE to power, it can be assumed that, remembering the experience of past years, national conservatives will be afraid to take the country away from the western direction, just as the new government of Montenegro was afraid to do so.