North Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev resignes

Zoran Zaev / Foto: Tanjug/AP Photo/Hektor Pustina

Zoran Zaev has resigned as prime minister of North Macedonia, after which Assembly Speaker Talat Xhaferi is expected to convene a session that will ascertain the resignation, and then elect a transitional, so-called Przino government ahead of early elections in the country on April 12.

"I believe that the resignation will arrive very soon in Sobranje (Macedonian Assembly) so that the procedure for electing a transitional government can begin and end in parliament within a day," Zaev told the Morning Briefing program.

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Zaev expects the whole process to be completed without problems and recalls that the practice of forming a transitional government was established back in 2016 at the request of the now-ruling Social Democratic Alliance, which was then in the ranks of the opposition.

As announced, the caretaker or so-called Przino government will be led by Oliver Spasovski, who has until now served as minister of interior, while interior and labor and social policy departments will be taken over by the opposition as a guarantee of holding fair and democratic elections.

The assembly of North Macedonia is set to elect a transitional government today, ahead of the country's early parliamentary elections on April 12.

The technical or Przino government should be elected by midnight, and start working tomorrow, with the primary goal of organizing free, fair and democratic elections.

The process begins with the submission of the resignation of current Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, which he announced at the end of October last year for January 3, 2020.

Photo: Tanjug/PRESIDENCY of SERBIA

After Assembly Speaker Talat Xhaferi is informed about the resignation, he is expected to convene a session that will ascertain the prime minister' resignation.

He will then inform President Stevo Pendarovski, who will give a mandate to form a technical government to Oliver Spasovski, a candidate proposed by the ruling Social Democratic Alliance and accepted by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE.

Spasovski must propose a new government, which will govern the country until the April 12 election.

In the so-called Przino government the opposition will receive positions of ministers of interior, labor and social policy, as well as additional deputy ministers in the departments of finance, information society and administration and agriculture, while the current authorities will receive positions of deputy ministers in interior and labor and social policy departments.

The term in office of the caretaker ministers and deputy ministers will last until the final results of the early parliamentary elections are announced.

The concept of a Przino or technical government was introduced after a political crisis in that country in 2015 when now Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, as the  leader of the opposition, began publishings recordings of eavesdropped conversations of officials from the previous VMRO-DPMNE-led government.

This concept, agreed on in 2016 between then Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and Zoran Zaev, later became a part of legislation and obligations before holding parliamentary elections in that country.

(Telegraf.rs)