January 29 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's parliament on Sunday voted into office a caretaker government led by Talat Xhaferi, the first ethnic Albanian to assume the role of caretaker prime minister of the country.
The caretaker cabinet which will be in charge of organising presidential and general elections in the spring of 2024 was backed by 65 members of the 120-seat parliament, according to a video of the sitting streamed on the YouTube channel of parliament.
Until the elections, Jovan Mitreski will hold the role of parliament speaker, succeeding Xhaferi in that position.
North Macedonia’s president Stevo Pendarovski on Friday handed Xhaferi a mandate to form a caretaker government following the resignation of prime minister Dimitar Kovacevski, leader of the ruling Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) party. The caretaker government will organize presidential elections, to be held on April 24, and general elections, to take place on May 8, two months early.
The caretaker government includes two new ministers - Pance Toskovski, who will head the interior ministry, and Gjoko Velkovski in charge of the ministry of labour and social policy. Both new ministers belong to the main opposition force, the VMRO-DPMNE party, which boycotted the vote.
Toskovski and Velkovski are replacing Oliver Spasovski and Jovanka Trencevska, respectively, both affiliated with the SDSM party.
SDSM agreed to the appointment of an ethnic Albanian prime minister in a caretaker cabinet as part of a deal with the Albanian Democratic Union of Integration (DUI) to form a government coalition after the previous general election held in 2020.