SKOPJE, Macedonia — Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Macedonia’s capital of Skopje on Tuesday to protest a visit by a European Union envoy who is trying to break the political deadlock that has left the country without a government for three months.
Waving red-and-yellow national flags, the protesters chanted ‘‘Macedonia! Macedonia!’’ as they gathered for a second consecutive day while EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn held talks with political leaders.
Protest organizers said they were holding rallies at 42 sites around the country, and unfurled giant banners along the route taken by Hahn from the airport to the capital.
Macedonia’s two largest parties do not have enough lawmakers to form a government after a general election in December.
They would need to form a coalition party from the country’s ethnic Albanian minority, which is demanding that Albanian be made the country’s second official language.
The long-governing conservatives rejected the minority demand outright. Conservative President Gjorge Ivanov, however, has refused to hand the rival Social Democrats a mandate to form a government until they do the same thing.
Ivanov, who did not meet with Hahn, argues that the language demand is an attempt to destroy Macedonia’s character.
Ethnic Albanians make up a quarter of Macedonia’s population. Albanian is currently recognized as an official language in minority-dominated areas but not in the country as a whole.
Macedonia has been locked in a major political crisis for the past two years, sparked by a wiretapping scandal and corruption allegations.
While former prime minister Nikola Gruevski won the December vote, he didn’t have enough votes to form a government.
The ethnic minority has had a rocky relationship with the majority Macedonians since the country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
The country narrowly avoided a civil war in 2001 when militants seeking greater rights for the ethnic Albanians took up arms against government forces. The conflict was quelled after a UN-brokered peace accord and required NATO peacekeepers.
Associated Press
