Today, Skopje is a practically blocked city, due to the barricades erected with tents by activists of the opposition SDSM in front of the government building and due to the announced rally in support of the authorities organized by Nikola Gruevski's VMRP-DPMNE tonight.
In anticipation of tonight's meeting of the ruling party, several hundred citizens, participants of yesterday's anti-government protest, are camping in front of the government building, and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev spent the night with them on the street.
They claim that they will stay there until Gruevski resigns. He said that he will not resign because he considers it a cowardly act, agencies report.
The ruling VMRO DPMNE has announced the holding of its rally "Macedonia is strong" for tonight, and citizens are invited to gather in front of the Macedonian parliament building, Sobranja, which is located a few hundred meters away from the government building. where opposition supporters spent the night and where a large number of people are expected to gather until tonight.
The police announced that a larger number of policemen would separate the two gatherings.
The leader of VMRO DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, previously said that the rally was being organized to "show that this country has a people with a strong backbone and that it will not allow someone from outside, someone who is an instrument and poltroon of someone's interests, to overthrow the state, to overthrow the legitimately elected government and to implement other scenarios".
In order to find a way out of the political and institutional crisis in Macedonia, a new meeting of the leaders of the four largest parties - VMRO DPMNE, SDSM, as well as the Albanian parties DUI, which is part of the ruling coalition and the opposition DPA, is scheduled for today in the club of deputies in Skopje, and the negotiations will will be held in the presence of the EU and US ambassadors in Macedonia, Aiva Orav and Jes Bailey.
VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, who is also the Prime Minister of Macedonia, and Zoran Zaev, leader of the opposition SDSM, will travel to Strasbourg later in the day to try to find a solution to the political and institutional crisis in Macedonia at a meeting with members of the European Parliament.
Due to his trip to Strasbourg, Zoran Zaev had his passport returned, which was confiscated at the end of January due to a criminal complaint in the "Coup" case.
Ali Ahmeti, the leader of the Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), a coalition partner of Nikola Gruevski, will not participate in the meetings in Strasbourg, nor will the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, whose leader is Menduh Thaci.
According to the assessment of the Macedonian media, however, there is no room for optimism that the two opposing parties - SDSM and VMRO DPMNE - will reach an agreement either at the talks in Skopje or in Strasbourg.
While Nikola Gruevski's resignation is the SDSM's exclusive request for the end of protests and the return of their deputies to parliament, in whose work they have not participated since April 2014 because they do not recognize the election results, Gruevski states that everything can be discussed at the negotiations except his resignation and the formation of a technical government.
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