Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, who retained power after his party won the lion’s share of votes in the country’s June 1 2008 snap elections, unveiled his proposed new cabinet on July 12, retaining most of the ministers from the previous government.

Reporting from the Macedonian capital Skopje, local and international news agencies said that those who had been proposed to stay on included Antonio Milososki (foreign affairs), Gordana Jankulovska (interior), Zoran Stavreski (without portfolio, in charge of economy), Trajko Slavevski (finance), Mihajlo Manevski (justice), Mile Janakieski (transport), Vele Samak (foreign investment) and Aco Spasenoski (agriculture).

Newcomers will include Zoran Konjanovski (defence), Ivica Bocevski (European integration), Vesna Kanceska Milevska (culture) and Pero Stojanovski (education). Ivo Ivanovski will head the newly-formed ministry for the information society.

The Albanian Democratic Union of Integration (DUI) party, Gruevski’s choice as a coalition partner, will have five ministries -- health, economy, local government, environment, and labour and social policy, and has proposed Abdulkahim Ademi to be deputy prime minister who will be in charge of implementing the 2001 Ohrid peace deal with ethnic Albanian rebels.

DUI proposed Bujar Osmani for the health portfolio, Farmir Besimi for economy, Musa Xhaferi for local government, Nexhat Jakupi for environment and Xhelal Bajrami to take the labour and social policy portfolio.

Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE coalition includes 63 members of parliament from his party in the 120-seat parliament, 18 from DUI and one from the small Party for European Initiative.

The speaker of Macedonia’s parliament, Trajko Veljanovski, said that approval of the new cabinet would be put to the vote on July 26.

The Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), which before the June 1 elections was Gruevski’s coalition partner, said on July 11 that it members of parliament would boycott sittings until issues “important to ethnic Albanians”, including pensions for ethnic Albanian rebels, recognition of Kosovo's independence and promulgation of Albanian as Macedonia's second official language, were tabled in parliament.

Gruevski's conservative VMRO-DPMNE party sealed a coalition deal with the DUI on July 5 2008.

The rivalry between the two ethnic Albanian parties, the DUI and DPA, led to severe violence at the elections, which led to re-runs in a number of Albanian-populated areas. A quarter of Macedonia's population is ethnic Albanian.

The new cabinet's main task is widely seen to be finding a solution to the name row with Greece that has been impeding the country's accession to Nato and the European Union. Greece and Macedonia have been at odds for 17 years, the former arguing that Macedonia is the name of its northern province and cannot be used as an official name by its neighbour.

As a result of the unsettled dispute, in April Greece blocked Nato issuing an invitation for Skopje to join the alliance, just as it is likely to put up obstacles in future talks with the EU.