Macedonia’s main opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, which is currently boycotting the work of the parliament, plans to file a no-confidence motion against the Social Democrat-led government when it returns to the assembly. 

The opposition party launched the boycott several months ago following the arrest of several of its MPs for their involvement in the violent incidents in the parliament in April 2017. The lawmakers have now been released and put under house arrest, where they are awaiting trial. 

“If we decide to return to the parliament the first thing we will do is to file a non-confidence motion against the government,” the party said in a statement on April 1, citing its leader Hristijan Mickoski as saying in the interview with Radio Free Europe.

According to Mickoski, VMRO-DPMNE will only return to the parliament for the upcoming session when an interpellation of the government will take place. Mickoski underlined that the opposition MPs will explain “all abuses and mistakes” made by the ruling majority in the past ten months.

He also said that VMRO-DPMNE is in talks with the governing Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) about conditions for the party to return to the parliament.

“We have two prerequisites — political and mathematical,” Mickoski said.

He did not elaborate on what he meant by the “mathematical” requirements, which he said have been met.

“I expect that very soon the enigma around the political demands will be overcome. In parallel with these negotiations, talks on the reform laws are underway,” he said.

Meanwhile news agency MIA reported on April 2 that the session on reform laws will be held on April 10 or 11. This was agreed at the meeting between parliament speaker Talat Xhaferi and heads of political parties in the assembly.

VMRO-DPMNE expects that the interpellation session will be held after the Orthodox Easter holidays, which will end on April 9. As VMRO wants the no-confidence motion to be held prior to the session on the reform laws, that means that probably the interpellation will be scheduled for April 10 with the reform laws session to be held the next day.

The governing majority wants the reform laws to be adopted by April 13 before the released of the EU progress report on Macedonia due on April 17.

The coalition led by the now opposition VMRO-DPMNE won 51 seats in the December 2016 election, but failed to form a government as it was unable to secure support from the ethnic Albanian parties, who were promised more concessions by Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, the leader of the SDSM.

Zaev is planning a government reshuffle and the possible expansion of the ruling majority in the parliament to include more parties.