Resignation of Nikola Gruevski from the post of deputy approved

 Nikola Gruevski

 The Parliament of North Macedonia approved the resignation from the post of the deputy of Nikola Gruevski, the former prime minister fugitive in Hungary. The latter had announced his resignation a few days after the procedure had begun to remove the mandate of the legislator by missing more than six months in the workplace. The letter sent to parliament was written in Hungarian and the parliamentary services in Skopje took a while to translate it.

Former Northern Macedonia Prime Minister wrote in his resignation letter that he thus does not wanted to put in a diffcult position his colleagues in his party VMRO-DPMNE. The opposition deputies, meanwhile, said Mr. Gruevski was not allowed to justify his absence over six months, accusing the authorities of persecuting him. According to the parliament's regulation, Nikola Gruevski may, within a thirty-day deadline, demand a salary in the in the amount of a MP's monthly salary for a period of one year.

Gruevski was sentenced to two years in prison by the Basic Court in Skopje due to his role during a tender for the purchase of a Mercedes vehicle worth about 600,000 euros for his private and official needs. Against him weight the charges of other criminal offenses, but Mr. Gruevski has found refuge in Budapest, which can hardly be extradited to North Macedonia.

On Tuesday the Parliament also approved the resignation of parliamentary MP Pavle Bogojevski, who was found under opposition and broader pressures on a narcotics scandal after a telephone conversation published by a Russian internet site. Mr. Bogojevski says he had asked for a small amount of cannabis oil for health effects for one of his family members, but the opposition led by VMRO-DPMNE filed charges and suspicions that the MP was using cocaine.

The Parliament approved quickly the two new deputies replacing Gruevski and Bogojevski.