Macedonia: Deputy interior minister resigns

Refet Elmazi, Macedonia’s deputy Interior Minister, handed in his resignation yesterday.

Izvor: BIRN

Thursday, 03.01.2008.

14:36

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Refet Elmazi, Macedonia’s deputy Interior Minister, handed in his resignation yesterday. Elmazi was last year involved in a brawl in parliament that prompted serious criticism. Macedonia: Deputy interior minister resigns In his letter of resignation, addressed to Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Elmazi said that he was stepping down for “personal reasons”. Government spokesman Ivica Bocevski confirmed Elmazi’s decision to the media. The parliamentary scuffle in September, which involved the deputy minister, several MPs and journalists, raised political tensions in the country, and led to criticism from EU, U.S. and NATO representatives. They blamed Macedonian politicians for the lack of sustainable and constructive political dialogue that had stalled their country’s NATO and EU membership bids. The brawl was also mentioned in the subsequent European Commission report on Macedonia’s reform progress. In November, Elmazi survived a no-confidence vote in the parliament tabled by the opposition, after a specially-appointed parliamentary commission confirmed his participation in the September events. This is a second time that Elmazi has tendered his resignation since taking office in 2006 as a member of the Democratic Party of Albanians, which is part of the centre-right coalition led by Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE. In May 2007 when police launched a weapons search operation in the village of Tanusevci, a former ethnic Albanian guerilla stronghold from their 2001 armed conflict with Macedonia’s security forces, Gruevski declined his resignation, which he offered as a sign of his disapproval of the police action. The political successor to the guerrilla force, the Democratic Union for Integration, is the largest party representing ethnic Albanians in parliament, but it is in opposition, and its bitter rivalry with Elmazi’s party has at times degenerated into violent incidents.

Macedonia: Deputy interior minister resigns

In his letter of resignation, addressed to Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Elmazi said that he was stepping down for “personal reasons”.

Government spokesman Ivica Bocevski confirmed Elmazi’s decision to the media.

The parliamentary scuffle in September, which involved the deputy minister, several MPs and journalists, raised political tensions in the country, and led to criticism from EU, U.S. and NATO representatives.

They blamed Macedonian politicians for the lack of sustainable and constructive political dialogue that had stalled their country’s NATO and EU membership bids.

The brawl was also mentioned in the subsequent European Commission report on Macedonia’s reform progress.

In November, Elmazi survived a no-confidence vote in the parliament tabled by the opposition, after a specially-appointed parliamentary commission confirmed his participation in the September events.

This is a second time that Elmazi has tendered his resignation since taking office in 2006 as a member of the Democratic Party of Albanians, which is part of the centre-right coalition led by Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE.

In May 2007 when police launched a weapons search operation in the village of Tanusevci, a former ethnic Albanian guerilla stronghold from their 2001 armed conflict with Macedonia’s security forces, Gruevski declined his resignation, which he offered as a sign of his disapproval of the police action.

The political successor to the guerrilla force, the Democratic Union for Integration, is the largest party representing ethnic Albanians in parliament, but it is in opposition, and its bitter rivalry with Elmazi’s party has at times degenerated into violent incidents.

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