Skjopje, 6 June 2024 (MIA) - President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova will give the mandate for the formation of the government to VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski on Thursday noon at the Villa Vodno, after he secured parliamentary majority with the 'Worth It' coalition and the ZNAM Movement following the May 8 elections, which was defined with the election of Afrim Gashi as Parliament Speaker.

The new cabinet is projected to consist of reorganized ministries, and VMRO-DPMNE submitted fast-tracked amendments of the Law on the Organization and Operation of the State Administration Bodies to Parliament on Wednesday, on which a session is expected to be held tomorrow. 

According to Mickoski, negotiations for a new government are finishing up. 

“The negotiations are in certain ways finished, in terms of establishing the government bodies talks have finished over the third echelon as well,” Mickoski said on Wednesday, adding he expects the future government to be elected before the final deadline defined by the legislation and Constitution.

He called for support from all MPs regarding the amendments which require a two-third majority in Parliament, i.e., the support of 80 MPs. The parties currently engaged in government coalition talks – VMRO-DPMNE (58 MPs), Worth It (14) and ZNAM (6) together have 78 MPs in Parliament. 

“We promised functional rule of law, an efficient government that will implement reforms. The essence of the enormous support from the citizens are the policies that the future government will have to implement in order to have rule of law, to ensure that there aren’t any second-class citizens, to strengthen the economy, to ensure that students have textbooks at the beginning of the school year, decent conditions in healthcare, subsidies for farmers and everything else we promised in our election program. For all of this to be implemented, it is essential that the amendments and reorganization of the government’s ministries are adopted,” Mickoski said.

The legitimacy and legality of the request, he said, is founded on the election result of VMRO-DPMNE's coalition and President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova.

“I expect support from all parliamentary groups that are a part of this composition of Parliament. Let’s leave assumptions aside. We aren’t naive politicians to believe in coincidences, there are rarely coincidences in politics,” Mickoski said asked if they held discussions to ensure support from 80 MPs, since the adoption of the amendments requires a two-third majority.

SDSM said the party will state its position on the reorganization of ministries once they see the bill, whereas Levica has said it would provide conditional support for the proposed reorganization of ministries – but has also asked VMRO-DPMNE to accept changing the country's voting system into one based on a single electoral district.

"Levica is once again lending a helping hand to DPMNE so our MPs support these legal amendments, with a simple condition: Let's also adopt the law changing the electoral model and introduce one electoral district! Introducing a single electoral district in the Republic of Macedonia is necessary to equally value each citizen's vote.The OSCE mission has been recommending this electoral system for years in their reports. This should not be a problem for DPMNE to accept, given that they announced this systemic solution in their election platform and pre-election promises," Levica said in a press release. 

The new amendments will introduce several novelties such as the establishment of a Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources, which was previously a sector at the Ministry of Economy. They also foresee the transformation of the Youth and Sport Agency into a Ministry of Sport, with the sector focused on youth becoming a part of the Ministry of Social Policy, Demographics and Youth. The sector on labor will become a part of the Ministry of Economy and Labor, while the sector on tourism will be transferred to the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Information Society and Administration will be reorganized into a Ministry of Digitization.

Talking to the press at the opening of Tetovo's Europe house on Wednesday, EU Ambassador David Geer also said the EU was looking forward to the formation of a stable government that would take the required steps for the implementation of all reforms required for the country's EU membership.

The 20-day period for the creation of the government will expire on June 25. ad/mr/nn/