Macedonia debates poll delay

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Elections in Macedonia cannot be held until more progress is made in holding together the fragile peace in the country, legislators said on Monday.

Macedonia's parliament was meeting to discuss calls for elections planed for January to be postponed.

Backing an appeal from President Boris Trajkovski, lawmakers in the 120-seat assembly agreed that the poll should be delayed to allow majority Macedonians and minority ethnic Albanians more time to shore up the peace process.

"For a vote to be democratic and truly valid, we must completely calm the situation down," said lawmaker Cedomir Kralevski of the leading Macedonian party, VMRO. "At the moment, we are far from such conditions."

The peace accord signed in August calls for January elections.

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Western officials had hoped holding the vote soon would firm up recent constitutional changes to improve the status of ethnic Albanians.

But in order for elections to take place in January, parliament would have to be dissolved this month under Macedonian law.

In an interview published Sunday in the newspaper Utrinski Vesnik, Trajkovski urged lawmakers to delay the vote until April to allow time for refugees and police troops to move back into northwestern towns controlled by ethnic Albanian rebels during a six-month insurgency this year.

"If you consider the objective situation on the ground -- the need for the return of security troops and refugees to their homes in the crisis region -- it is too soon to hold early elections," Trajkovski said.

There has been sporadic violence since the peace deal was signed. Last week a group calling itself the Albanian National Army claimed responsibility for a bomb blast in the northwest of the country. Nobody was hurt.

Legislators from the two leading ethnic Albanian parties, the Democratic Party of Albanians and the Democratic Prosperity Party, also said they favoured a delay in holding the elections -- but for different reasons than those cited by the Macedonians.

Zamir Dika of the DPA said key provisions of the peace accord must be fulfilled ahead of the vote, including passage of a law on local self-rule in areas where ethnic Albanians are the majority and the enactment of legislation allowing the use of the Albanian language in parliament.

The parliament will resume the debate on Tuesday when a vote on the elections is expected.