Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski categorically rejected Sunday SDSM leader Branko Crvenkovski’s proposal that the early parliamentary elections should be held after a guarantee is received that the Public Revenue Office is not going to block Velija Ramkovski’s media with new measures. Gruevski said this condition was unacceptable.

“We cannot accept blackmails that would make institutions dysfunctional or selective toward the legal and physical entities. We appeal to SDSM to renounce the unlawful and illegitimate demands, which are not within the Government’s authorization, and to feel content with the Government’s acceptance of all their other demands. The boycott is a serious damage that they as a party inflict to our country,” Gruevski said, welcoming the decision of opposition PDSH to return to Parliament.

SDSM replied Sunday that their decision to boycott the elections remained unless their conditions were accepted.

“We cannot understand from Gruevski’s response if he wants elections this year or if his goal is to have elections without the opposition. Our demands were within the framework of the powers of the executive branch,” SDSM said.

Crvenkovski has recently proposed that the early elections should be held on 26 June and that Gruevski should guarantee that the Public Revenue Office is not going to set any additional blocks to the accounts of the television channel A1 and the newspapers Vreme, Spic and **** e Re by the time the elections are over. In addition, Crvenkovski demanded that the prime minister should decide whether the budget money for advertisements should be paid to the media evenly or depending on their ratings.

“If the response to this offer is negative, we are going to boycott the elections,” Crvenkovski said Thursday.

According to Prime Minister Gruevski, this is nothing new and is yet another SDSM’s attempt at public manipulation.

“Those are the same conditions they set before, only rephrased. That shows that SDSM wishes to avoid elections on any cost because they know they will lose,” Gruevski said at the opening of the hockey arena within the framework of the Boris Trajkovski sports arena and the carting club for children and adults.

He said he told EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule at their recent meeting in Brussels that there would be elections in Macedonia because the country needed them at this moment and that they would be fair and democratic.

As regards the negative criticisms of the opposition that this government had done everything for Macedonia to remain outside the European integration, the prime minister reiterated that the agenda of this government was Macedonia’s membership of NATO and the EU. A proof of that, he said, is last year’s positive report of the European institutions and the recommendation for opening membership negotiations.

“Things are moving in a good direction and we are working in keeping with the European guidelines. We are doing all we can to complete the set tasks so that Macedonia can join the Alliance and the EU,” Gruevski said.

The boycott of the parliamentary elections by the bloc of parties led by SDSM could increase the number of Albanian MPs to over 40, warns Gjorgji Spasov from the Institute Demos.

He explains that the abstinence of some 220,000 Macedonian voters from the usual number of voters of around 690,900 is going to help the Albanians, with their 280,000 votes on average, to win much more parliamentary seats than they have now.

“With 40 and over 40 Albanian MPs in Parliament, the situation and the distribution of power in the government and the application of the Badinter principle are going to change dramatically,” Spasov said.