Macedonian parliamentary election, 2011
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15Early parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of Macedonia on 5 June 2011, a year earlier than necessary. All 123 parliamentary seats of the Sobranie were due for election, including the 3 seats provided for the first time for representatives of the Macedonian citizens living abroad: 1 from Europe, 1 from North America, and 1 from Asia and Australia. The decision of the ruling parties, the Christian Democratic VMRO-DPMNE and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), to dissolve the Parliament and call for an early election was preceded by protests of the Social Democratic Union (SDSM), the major opposition party, and subsequent boycott of the Parliament by them, and by other smaller opposition parties.
Parliamentary elections were due in mid-2012, after the ruling coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and DUI won over two-thirds of the seats in the 2008 elections. However, a bitter dispute between the ruling coalition and the opposition was triggered when a police-assisted raid of public revenue officers took place on 25 November 2010, on a group of related companies including a private TV station, three daily newspapers, and other companies, for alleged tax evasion offenses. The opposition claimed that the media were raided due to their anti-government inclination. The opposing SDSM organised a huge rally on 5 December 2010, in which, according to estimates of the organisers, some 50,000 marched on the main streets of the capital Skopje and in front of the Parliament building, demanding that charges against the companies and the managers be dropped, and early election. However, the investigation continued, and on 24 December 2010 16 people were charged and detained for suspected tax evasion, abuse of office and money laundering, including the owner of the TV station and several executives.
On 28 January 2011 the opposition SDSM decided to walk out of the Parliament in protest, citing lack of democratic capacity of the government, and demanding early election. The move was followed by the smaller opposition parties in the Parliament – New Social Democratic Party (NSDP), New Democracy (ND) and the Liberal Party (LP). The Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) supported the decision, but they were already boycotting the Parliament since 2009.
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