The Prime Minister of Macedonia rejected the opposition's demand to resign

According to Gruevsky, government opponents are trying to establish a dictatorship of a political minority in the country

Macedonia Prime Minister Nikola Gruevsky, speaking in Skopier in front of a group of his supporters, said that he was not going to resign and give way to the opposition.

While critics of the nine years in Gruevsky’s power have accused him and his environment of corruption and election fraud, the 44-year-old prime minister claims that the opponents of the current leadership are trying to establish a “dictatorship of a political minority” in the country. “He thinks that they can break us, spreading a lie through fabricated notes that they can intimidate us with bandits, that we will give in and surrender, but this evening they received an answer,” Gruevsky said at a pro -government rally on Monday, which gathered tens of thousands of people.

Some mistakes and omissions, according to the prime minister, really took place in the government, but will be corrected.

Western agencies note that many participants in the pro -government action near the parliament building were organized to the capital on buses from different parts of the country.

This rally was preceded by a thousands of opposition demonstration on Sunday . Protests in Macedonia have been going on for several weeks. Hundreds of opposition activists arranged a tent camp at the Government House in Skopier, stating that they would stay there until Gruevsky, who has been the post of Prime Minister 9 years, will not resign.

Macedonia is undergoing a political crisis after the elections of last year, the results of which, according to the opposition, were falsified. Recently, the leader of the leading opposition force, the Social Democratic Union, Zoran Zaev accused the authorities of illegal surveillance of fellow citizens in order to control the judicial authorities, employees of the election commission and journalists. Numerous interceptions of telephone conversations were made public.

The crisis in politics led to the aggravation of the economic problems of Macedonia. The unemployment for the past few years is about 28 percent. These problems could be solved if Macedonia, as a result of membership in the European Union, would gain access to the common EU market. Macedonia has been conducting negotiations on membership in the European Union since 2005, but the current government is very inactively included in this process, although it declaratively states that this is its main priority. Instead of rapprochement and searching for dialogue with their closest neighbors, the Macedonia authorities began to pursue a conflicting policy by signing a declaration of energy cooperation with Russia in early April - along with Hungary, Greece, Serbia and Turkey, the essence of which is reduced to the project "Turkish Stream" - the construction of the gas pipeline, designed to replace the "southern stream", which the EU was abandoned after the EU Russia's interference in the events in Ukraine. The fact that Macedonia finally turned her back to the European Union, obviously, also led to current protests.

Another reason for the start of demonstrations is fears regarding the new growth of interethnic tension. As a result of armed clashes this month, 22 people were killed between the police and the Albanian group in the city of Kumanovo, including 8 police officers. Prime Minister Gruevsky said that behind the riots in Kumanov stands a "particularly dangerous terrorist group."

Ethnic Albanians now amount to about 30 percent of the population of Macedonia.

On Monday, the second meeting of representatives of the main political forces of the country, including the opposition, endlessly ended in Skopje to no avail. Negotiations were held through the mediation of diplomats from the United States and the leadership of the European Union.

Western diplomats call for conflicting parties to the speedy resolution of contradictions in order to prevent deviations from democratic reforms and a repetition of the 2001 interethnic conflict. The current situation in Macedonia is called the most serious in the country since the time of this conflict.