January 15 (SeeNews) - Macedonia's ruling VMRO-DPMNE party on Friday said it appointed Emil Dimitriev, secretary general of the party, as caretaker prime minister in the runup to early elections in April.
"[...] we believe that he [Dimitriev] will carry out in a responsible manner the duties of a prime minister of the government that will hold early parliamentary elections," the party said in a statement posted on its website
Earlier in the day, Nikola Gruevski handed in his resignation as prime minister, opening the way for early elections aimed to put an end to a longstanding political crisis in the country.
"I will submit to the parliament chairman a letter with my resignation as prime minister which will take effect a hundred days before the official election date," Gruevski said in a statement published on the government's website on Thursday.
The elections will take place on April 24.
Gruevski added that his decision is in line with the agreement on early elections that the four main political parties, with international mediation, signed in the summer.
In its statement VMRO-DPMNE also said that it supports fully the steps taken so far by Gruevski in preparation of the forthcoming vote, and that it backs unanimously Gruevski's candidacy for prime minister in the election race.
This was the fourth term in office for Gruevski, leader of the VMRO-DPMNE party.
The political crisis in the country started last January when opposition leader Zoran Zaev accused the coalition government of the conservative VMRO-DPMNE and the ethnic Albanians' DUI of corruption, wiretapping illegally thousands of people and covering-up a murder. For its part, the government has charged Zaev with trying to destabilize the country. The political crisis was exacerbated by an anti-terrorist operation in the northern town of Kumanovo in May which ended with eight policemen and a dozen gunmen killed and some 40 wounded, raising concerns about possible inter-ethnic violence.
The country was on the brink of civil war in 2001 after minority ethnic Albanians took up arms, demanding bigger rights. The conflict ended in August 2001 with the European Union-brokered Ohrid Agreement, which gave ethnic Albanians wider civil freedoms in exchange for guerrilla disarmament which ended in 2003.
Macedonia was granted European Union candidate status in December 2005. In October 2009, the European Commission recommended the opening of accession negotiations with Macedonia but later postponed the launch of entry talks country due to Greece’s opposition to the name of the country.
The Commission has repeatedly said that Macedonia can start accession negotiations once it resolves its name dispute with Greece. In 2008, Greece also blocked an invitation to Macedonia to join NATO.