Macedonia's parliament convened Saturday for the first time since the June 5 snap poll in which caretaker Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's conservative VMRO party again won the most seats, according to dpa. VMRO claimed 56 out of the 123 seats in the legislature and appears set to continue governing in an alliance with the Democratic Union for Integrations (DUI), with 15 seats. DUI won among the Albanian minority, which makes up a quarter of the Macedonian population. The two parties have, however, not yet said that they have reached an agreement to renew their coalition or upon the election of the parliament speaker. This, the fourth item on the agenda of the constitutive session, is an advance test of their relations. According to law, President Gjorge Ivanov must designate the new premier within 10 days. The prime minister-designate then has 20 days to present his government and get majority support. The opposition is again led by the Social Democratic Union, with 42 seats. DUI's main rivals, the Democratic Party of Albanians, has eight seats and another Albanian party, the NDP, has two. Not yet 41 years old, Gruevski has governed Macedonia through two terms since 2006. Despite winning their third consecutive poll, he and VMRO face crumbling support - they took eight fewer seats than in 2008 - after doing little, analysts say, to move Macedonia forward over the past five years. Though the European Union formally recognized Macedonia as a membership candidate in 2005, during Gruevski's reign Skopje failed to open accession talks. The country has yet to implement many administrative and judiciary reforms, a precondition for a more efficient fight against rampant corruption and crime. But the most crippling factor to Skopje's EU bid is the row with Athens over the name Macedonia, which Greece claims as its own, along with the heritage of the ancient Macedonia's ruler Alexander the Great. Because of the dispute, Greece blocked Macedonia from joining NATO in 2009, and has also vetoed the start of EU accession talks. The inability of the VMRO to move Macedonia's EU bid forward had caused a rift with DUI ahead of the snap poll. Yet Gruevski signaled no inclination that he may be more ready to compromise with Greece. Macedonia again angered Greece by continuing to promote Alexander as the national symbol immediately after the poll. Last week, a 15-metre bronze statue of the Hellenic warrior was erected in Skopje's central square, drawing condemnation from Athens.
