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The Parliament of North Macedonia did not approve the motion of no confidence raised by the nationalist party 'E Majta' against the Speaker of the Assembly, Afrim Gashi. 21 MPs from the Macedonian opposition, 'E Majta' and SDSM voted in favor, while 72 MPs voted against. The initiative was also not supported by the lawmakers of the European Front led by the opposition Democratic Union for Integration, but they did not participate in the vote; they left the hall before the initiative was put to the vote.
'E Majta' accused Mr. Gashi of violating the work regulations of the parliament and of instigating several scandals. Albanian parties described the initiative for interpellation (motion of no confidence) as motivated on ethnic grounds.
The chairman of the "Left" party, Dimitar Apasiev emphasized that the speaker of the parliament does not respect the Macedonian language and flag; that he violated the secular principle of the state by organizing a religious prayer in the parliament (on the occasion of commemorating the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide); that he intervened against the laws in the case of the control at the Skopje airport of the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani and misused official and police services with his participation in a wedding in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, the speaker of the parliament evaluated the initiative for the motion against him as an attempt to deepen the divisions in society, for giving up the country's path towards the European Union and NATO membership. Mr. Gashi responded with counter-accusations to the 'Left' party for its "Albanophobic and Islamophobic" attitudes.
"We all speak loudly about the EU; citizens talk about coexistence. We all say that we are here together in good and bad, while only this party (E Majta) speaks against the three fundamental pillars of our society: our Euro-Atlantic orientation, our commitment to good neighborly relations and our commitment to harmony interethnic. It's very bad when you play the nationalism card of someone else's judgment without listening to all the facts and arguments," said Mr. Gashi.
He did not stay in the plenary session on the grounds that he did not want his presence to influence the course of the debate, as he called on the legislators to vote according to their individual convictions.
The opposition Social Democratic League supported the interpellation against Mr. Gashi, accusing him of the case at the Skopje airport and the trip in an official car to a wedding in Kosovo, in which case the entire convoy of krushkas had crossed the Macedonia-Kosovo border without was subjected to the control of personal documents at the border point of Bllaca.
The legislators of the European Front, who criticized the work of the speaker of the parliament, on the other hand opposed the interpellation, describing it as motivated on ethnic grounds.
"We find and are of the opinion that the motive for this interpellation has nothing to do with the work of the speaker of the parliament, but it has to do with his ethnicity", said Talat Xhaferi, deputy of DUI.
However, Mr. Xhaferi, like some of his colleagues from the European Front, emphasized a series of remarks about the work of the speaker of the parliament due to the continuous non-respect, according to him, of the procedures established by the regulation of the work of the parliament.
The prime minister and the chairman of the VMRO-DPMNE party, Hristijan Mickovski, has called it "immature and cracked behavior" of the Social Democratic League, DUI and the Left, adding that there is no basis for questioning the speaker of the parliament, Afrim Gashi.
The interpellation in North Macedonia is equivalent to the vote of confidence. The parliamentary majority has 76 deputies out of 120 in the country's parliament. / VOA
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