AA leader Sela: PM Zaev gets new ministerial post, but loses serious partner

By the election of a new health minister and the decision of the Alliance of Albanians (AA) to quit the administration, the government has lost morale, party leader Zijadin Sela said late Thursday in the TV Telma ‘Top Theme’ program.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has gotten yet another ministerial post, but lost a rather serious partner in terms of reform process and the efforts for overcoming the political crisis, Sela said.

In the political game of DUI, whose popularity among ethnic Albanians has been tumbling down on daily basis, Zaev saw an opportunity to get an important ministry, such as the one of health, in order to keep working on his business plans, not on reforming the sector, Sela said.

At the onset, he said, the government’s intention was not to build a new clinical center, but to give priority to resolving the numerous problems in the health care sector.

‘Therefore the Ministry of Health was not very attractive for the Prime Minister and other partners of the government coalition. So it has not been assigned to the AA because of (Arben) Taravari as political players claim,’ Sela said.

He notified that for 15 years the ethnic Albanians in Macedonia ‘have been living in monism, there is only one party that always scores victory at the elections’.

‘It doesn’t mean that the Albanians wish for that political option, the practice is imposed by the Macedonian partners – until recently it was VMRO-DPMNE, and now at the local elections SDSM followed the suit. They (SDSM) protested for democracy, but the most serious problem related to recent local poll was that Zaev obstructed the possibility for democracy and changes to become tangible for ethnic Albanians as well,’ Sela said.