The deal Zoran Zaev reached with Afrim Gashi from the Alternative party to get their support for the fledging SDSM led coalition raised eyebrows in Macedonia for the scale of the concessions Zaev made, especially among Zaev’s other, older partners.
Pavle Trajanov, leader of the DS party and one of the minor coalition partners of SDSM in the Parliament, protested Zaev’s deal with the Alternative party. According to Trajanov, the ethnic balance in the Government is all out of proportion, however he isn’t going anywhere and remain part of DUI’s Government. Desperate to gain the support of the ethnic Albanian Alternative party and its four votes in Parliament to reclaim a slim majority, Zaev gave them the important Healthcare Ministry and sacrificed his personal friend Venko Filipce, and a newly created department of the diaspora. The Alternative will gain the Information Technology and Public Administration from DUI, however DUI will get the Agriculture Ministry which was vacated when the BESA party left the Government.
This leaves SDSM with six departments and three seats of Deputy Prime Minister. DUI keeps all the key five departments (MoFA, Finance, Economy…) in total and one position of Deputy Prime Minister, and the Alternative will get three departments where the BESA party it is replacing only had one, and the Liberal Democratic Party has one minor department.
The Serbs have more Ministers in the Government in Kosovo, than Macedonians in Macedonia. But Zaev isn’t done…