Macedonia’s Constitutional Court scrapped the decision to dissolve the parliament on May 25, a week after it took the temporary step of halting all activities arising from this decision, including the plans to hold early elections on June 5.

The ruling was expected after on May 18, the day the temporary measure was taken, the parliament reconvened and voted to cancel the decision to holds early elections in June. The parliament did not set a new election date.

Macedonia is facing a prolonged political crisis with daily protests against the government and president Gjorge Ivanov’s April 12 decision to pardon over 50 politicians, most of them from the governing party, who are under criminal investigation.

The Constitutional Court‘s final ruling that the decision on the dissolution of the parliament was unconstitutional was made unanimously by the court’s nine judges, broadcaster Telma reported.

The initiative was launched by the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), VMRO-DPMNE’s junior partner in the government, which voted for the decision in January but later insisted was unconstitutional because was taken before setting the election date.

The parliament disbanded on April 6 and the parliament speaker called the election on April 15.

On May 18, the governing parties in the parliament also voted to replace interim ministers from the opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) with deputies from the governing VMRO-DPMNE. The move, which was taken without consensus, angered the SDSM, whose lawmakers walked out of the session.