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Macedonian political leaders to seek solution to political crisis at Vienna meeting

Xinhua, April 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Leaders of the four major political parties of Macedonia will meet in Vienna, Austria on Friday to work out a final solution to the deepening political crisis in the country.

Organized by the European Union (EU) Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, the meeting will be attended by the leader of the VMRO-DPMNE -- the country's ruling party -- and the leaders of the three major opposition parties -- the SDSM, the DUI and the DPA. Three members of the EU Parliament will also attend the meeting.

The leaders are expected to show their political will to overcome the country's chronic political crisis so as to "return the country to the path towards EU and NATO integration" in Vienna, said Maja Kocijancic, the spokesperson of the EU Commission, in Brussels.

The four leaders had reached an agreement on ending the ongoing political crisis in the country caused by leaked wiretapped phone conversations between high-ranking government officials, which, the opposition parties said, showed the officials' involvement in corruption scandals.

But the implementation of the agreement was undermined earlier this month when the main opposition party SDSM opposed holding premature parliamentary elections on June 5, as previously agreed by the parliament, claiming that necessary preconditions for securing free and fair elections are not met yet.

"It is our opinion that premature elections are the only way out of the crisis. Postponing the elections will only prolong the crisis," Antonio Miloshoski, a member of the executive committee of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE, told Xinhua.

Before the Vienna meeting, the two political rivals, VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM, will rally for public support in the streets of Skopje on Thursday. An informal group of activists supported by the SDSM will demand the postponement of the elections, and express their dissatisfaction toward the decision of Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov to pardon the politicians suspected of corruption and other crimes.

Meanwhile, a group called GDOM (Citizen Movement for Defense of Macedonia) that supports the ruling party VMRO-DPMNE, will organize a counter-protest. Endi