Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev is planning a government reshuffle and the possible expansion of the ruling majority in the parliament to include more parties.

Zaev’s Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), supported by another small ethnic Albanian party, have a slim majority of 62 MPs in the 120-seat parliament. When the coalition came to power in spring 2017, after the conservative VMRO-DPMNE’s 10 years in office, it looked very fragile, but having initiated numerous reforms and won convincingly in the October 2017 local elections, Zaev is now looking to strengthen his position. 

The prime minister said on March 28 that the cabinet is in talks with the small Democratic Party of Turks in Macedonia, and expects to complete negotiations by April 3, according to a government statement. The Democratic Party of Turks in Macedonia has only one MP, but given the ruling coalition’s tiny majority, any party that will support the government will be welcome.

Ethnic Albanian party Besa, which won five seats in the parliament and initially wanted to join the government but later changed its mind, now is reconsidering its decision. Since then, Besa has divided itself into two factions, but Zaev plans to hold talks with each of them about possibly including them in the government and getting their support in the assembly.

“Later on, we will talk with other opposition parties and MPs,” Zaev said, replying to a journalist question.

The coalition led by the now opposition VMRO-DPMNE won 51 seats in the December 2016 election, including 42 VMRO-DPMNE MPs, but failed to form a government as it was unable to secure support from the ethnic Albanian parties, who were promised more concessions by Zaev. There is speculation that some of VMRO-DPMNE’s coalition partners may decide to change sides and join the government to support its reforms instead.

Hit and run scandal 

The issue of the reshuffle was raised after Justice Minister Bilen Saliji from the DUI resigned last week following public criticism over a case concerning a four-year-old boy, who died two years ago after being hit by a car.

The public prosecutor reduced the charges against the driver that hit the boy in the northern city of Kumanovo, following an argument with his father, from deliberate murder to a serious traffic offence.

Several protests were held in Skopje and Kumanovo after the prosecutor’s decision, which may lead to the driver’s sentence being reduced.

Saliji said he tendered his resignation due to deteriorating public trust in the judiciary. 

More work ahead

Macedonia faces many challenges ahead of the expected decision by the European Commission to allow the country to start its long-awaited EU membership talks, and bolstering his coalition would help Zaev to push ahead with the required reforms. 

Before the talks can start, Macedonia must solve the name dispute with Greece, which is the most challenging issue faced by the government. Greece objects to the use of the name “Macedonia” and Skopje has said it will change the country name to unblock its path towards EU and Nato membership. Negotiations are ongoing and both sides are optimistic, even though recently substantial differences between the two countries’ positions emerged. 

Besides this, the opposition has been boycotting the parliament for months, obstructing the adoption of crucial reform laws. The boycott started following the arrest of opposition MPs over their involvement in the April 2017 violent incident in the parliament, which left 100 people injured including the country's current prime minister Zaev.

30 people indicted in the case, most of them VMRO supporters and several of the party's MPs. The prosecutor said there is evidence that a person tried to assassinate Zaev during the invasion of the parliament by protesters.

Another stumbling block is the language law, which would make Albanian the second official language in the country and is strongly opposed by VMRO-DPMNE. President Gjorge Ivanov recently refused for the second time to sign the law saying it was unconstitutional, which opens a constitutional crisis that may easily turn into another political crisis in the country.