By RICK LYMAN - MAY 18, 2015 - via NY Times wrote:WARSAW — The leaders of Macedonia’s top political parties met for several hours Monday, but were unable to resolve the festering political crisis that has rocked that Balkan nation.
Tens of thousands of protesters had taken to the streets of the capital, Skopje, on Sunday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, whose conservative and increasingly authoritarian government has been under fire for months over a wiretapping scandal.
Mr. Gruevski held talks Monday with Zoran Zaev, the leader of the largest opposition party, the left-wing Social Democrats, as well as Ali Ahmeti and Menduh Thaci, whose parties represent Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority. Jess L. Baily, the American ambassador, and Aivo Orav, the European Union representative in Skopje, also took part.
Officials said that three of the party leaders, including Mr. Gruevski, favored forming some sort of working group to devise a solution to the problem. But Mr. Zaev continued to insist that Mr. Gruevski leave office and turn over power to a transitional government that would enact reforms and pave the way to new elections.
A new round of negotiations was set for May 26.
A gathering of Mr. Gruevski’s supporters, which government supporters said would dwarf the size of the protest crowd on Sunday, was scheduled for Monday evening outside Parliament.
Beginning in February, Mr. Zaev has released a series of what he calls “bombs,” audio excerpts from what the opposition claims are 670,000 secretly recorded conversations from more than 20,000 Macedonian telephone numbers. In the released recordings, top government officials are heard plotting how to rig votes, buy off judges and punish political opponents.
Three top government officials have already resigned in the crisis, but that has not mollified protesters.
Mr. Zaev said the recordings were made by the government and leaked to the opposition.
Mr. Gruevski has said that the recordings were made at the direction of the “intelligence services” of an unnamed foreign country. Several current and former civil servants have been charged with aiding this effort. Mr. Zaev has been charged with threatening violence against the prime minister.
After thousands of protesters gathered Sunday outside the prime minister’s office — the government put the size of the crowd at 20,000, the opposition claimed there were two or three times that many, perhaps more — a smaller contingent set up an encampment and vowed to remain there until Mr. Gruevski resigned.
“We came here and we don’t plan to go until Gruevski resigns,” Mr. Zaev told the crowd.
Fewer than 1,000 of the protesters remained Monday afternoon, lounging in and around tents covered with protest banners and flags, dancing, listening to music and playing cards and chess to pass the time.
“We came here not only to protest but to show that the citizens of this country are not those who should be afraid anymore,” said Aleksandar Trajanov, 21, a university student. “It is the government and the political parties that should fear the citizens.”
Aleksandar Dimishkovski contributed reporting from Skopje, Macedonia.
--Andy
for the question... In reality no one knows. If I need to put my money the data originates from Macedonian secret service and no foreign secret service is involved. But this is according to me.
