Skopje government survives
October 6, 2012
Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's coalition won the vote late on Friday by 68 votes to 42 in the 123-member parliament.
The opposition leftist Alliance for Macedonia brought the motion claiming the premier was guilty of stoking ill-feeling between the Macedonian majority and an ethnic Albanian minority that represents some 25 percent of the population.
Ironically, Gruevski and his conservative VMRO-DPMNE party survived thanks to the support of the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) party, the country's third largest, with which they are allied in the coalition.
Relations between the partner parties have recently been strained after the country's defense minister, an ethnic Albanian, paid tribute to rebels killed during a seven-month conflict in 2001 between government forces and Albanian rebels.
In response, Gruevski's party presented a draft law to give pensions to former government soldiers but not for the rebels.
Disunity within the coalition has been mirrored in wider society with instances of violence and civil unrest based on ethnic divides.
In mid-April five Macedonians were found shot dead with the subsequent arrest of three suspects arrest of three people over their alleged involvement in the murder was followed by incidents between police and ethnic Albanian demonstrators who demanded their liberation.
rc/mr (AFP, AP, dapd)