Thousands gather in Macedonia in support of prime minister

Macedonia’s embattled prime minister rallied thousands of supporters yesterday in a show of force, a day after opponents held their own mass protest to demand his resignation over months of damaging wire-tap revelations.

The crowd in central Skopje appeared comparable in size to Sunday's opposition rally, when tens of thousands called for Nikola Gruevski to quit over a flood of disclosures which the West says have cast serious doubt on the state of democracy in the former Yugoslav republic.

Western diplomacy

The crisis rocking Mr Gruevski’s nine-year conservative rule is the worst since western diplomacy dragged

Macedonia

from the brink of all-out civil war during an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001, promising it a path to

European Union

and

Nato

membership.

A dispute with neighbouring Greece over Macedonia's name has halted its integration into the West, and in that time critics say Mr Gruevski has tilted to the right, stoking nationalism and monopolising power in coalition with a party of ethnic Albanian former guerrillas.

Since February, he has faced embarrassing revelations against him and his ministers contained in taped conversations that appear to expose tight government control over journalists, judges and the conduct of elections.

Opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev says the tapes, which he has dubbed "bombs", were made illegally by the government, part of a mass surveillance operation targeting 20,000 allies and opponents alike, and leaked to him by a whistleblower.

Mr Gruevski has not disputed that the voices on the tapes are genuine but says that a foreign spy service made the recordings and that the audio has been doctored. Mr Zaev has been charged with violence against the state.

‘Defend our country’

“We’re here to defend our country,” said Snezana, a 28-year-old pro-government protester who declined to give her surname. “It’s time we stand up against this dark foreign scenario. Zaev doesn’t even realise he’s just a puppet.”

Western diplomats in Skopje are trying to mediate a solution to the crisis, concerned at the potential impact of political instability on inter-ethnic peace.

On May 9th and 10th, a police raid on a northern ethnic Albanian neighbourhood left 18 people dead: eight police officers and 10 Albanians, described by the government as terrorists.

Mr Gruevski said police had thwarted a terrorist plot, but some Albanians and foreign analysts said the timing suggested the government was trying to create a diversion.

Ethnic Albanians account for some 30 per cent of the population.

Dozens of anti-government protesters have set up tents in front of Mr Gruevski’s government office, saying they will stay until he steps down.

Reuters