No place for ex-rebels in FYROM’s new government

No place for ex-rebels in FYROM’s new government

SKOPJE (Reuters) - The prime minister-designate of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Nikola Gruevski, yesterday ruled out a coalition government with the country’s largest ethnic Albanian party, packed with veterans of a 2001 guerrilla insurgency. President Branko Crvenkovski yesterday gave Gruevski the mandate to form a government, three weeks after his conservative VMRO-DPMNE toppled the Social Democrat-led government in a general election. “The Democratic Union of Integration (DUI) definitely will not be part of the new cabinet,” Gruevski said. Gruevski has been under pressure from the West to find room for the DUI, which emerged as the most popular party within the 25-percent Albanian minority in the July 5 vote.