site.btaSkopje Parliament Registers Resignation of Health Minister Arben Taravari and Two Deputy Ministers from His Party

At its session on Tuesday, the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia registered the resignation of Health Minister Arben Taravari, as well as the resignations of the deputy ministers in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management and the Ministry of Defence, nominated by the Alliance for Albanians, of which Taravari is the chairman.

The three politicians were not present in Parliament and did not wish to justify their resignations, according to media reports in North Macedonia.

Taravari and his fellow party members in the government resigned after the Alliance for Albanians decided to go into opposition and left the VLEN coalition, which is part of the government. After last week's party meeting, Taravari announced that the decision was taken because of the criticism they had faced from citizens for not implementing the changes they had promised. 

"So, we decided to go back to the citizens. Let's ask them for their trust in the local elections in October. We concluded that if there is distrust in the members of the government, if there are conspiracies and all kinds of suspicions, there is nothing to look for there. It is better to be out, to go back to the citizens, to hear their voice," he said at the time.

Taravari pointed out that there is a huge dissatisfaction among Albanians with the way the VLEN coalition is governing, especially in view of the treatment of Albanians in the institutions and North Macedonia's slowing European path.

The cracks in the government coalition were triggered when the Alliance for Albanians, led by Taravari, decided to come up with its own lists for municipal councillors in the local elections to be held in October, which was not accepted by its coalition partners in VLEN.

Of the 14 MPs in the VLEN parliamentary group, Arben Taravari's Alliance for Albanians had 5 MPs, and on Tuesday the group's new coordinator announced that it now has 9 MPs, with one more expected to join, the country's media said.