Zaev rejects opposition's request for early parliamentary elections

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev today rejected the request of the leader of the largest Macedonian opposition party VMRO DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski, for early parliamentary elections.

"We finally need to stop with early elections, which halt production capacities like these and the entire Macedonian economy," Zaev told reporters at the opening of a new industrial facility of a Macedonian company in Gevgelija.

The Prime Minister of North Macedonia said that the country has a clear direction and emphasized that European integration is continuing.

All the difficult decisions that have been made, Zaev stressed, were for the sake of the people's economic standard, for opening new jobs, for motivating foreign investors to invest, to open new jobs, to increase exports, gross domestic product, and thus the prosperity of the entire nation.

"Any premature rush to elections hinders such processes. Regular elections are in 2024, and we should stick to that, and until then, literally everyone, starting with me, the president, the executive government, municipalities, but also all our citizens, should roll up their sleeves and work. Only then will we have higher salaries, more investments, only then will we have higher exports, and only then will we bring greater happiness to our entire nation," said Zaev.

The leader of the Macedonian opposition, Hristijan Mickoski, requested on Friday that early parliamentary elections be held as soon as possible, dissatisfied with the work of the government led by SDSM leader Zoran Zaev, and proposed that they be held together with the local elections this autumn.

"Early parliamentary elections should be held as soon as possible, because this unstable, small, thin ruling majority has shown that Macedonia is a hybrid regime, that it is stuck in corruption, at 111th place (Transparency International list). By all other measurement scales, by the number of foreign investors, by the economic decline, we are regressing or are at the bottom in the region," he said.