North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has reshuffled his coalition government, bringing in five new ministers, the Beta news agency reported.

Zaev brought in Goran Milevski, the leader of his SDSM’s minority parter the LDP, to take over the Local Government Ministry while Husni Ismaili took over the culture ministry.  

Trajan Dimovski was appointed Agriculture Minister replacing Ljupce Nikolovski who left the post to become SDSM General Secretary.   Naser Nuredin was named Environmental Protection and Spatial Planning Minister, replacing Sadul Duraku who now heads the newly-formed Ministry for the Political System.  

The post of Finance Minister was left vacant with Zaev saying he would take over that post until a new minister is appointed to replace the ousted Dragan Tevdovski. The Anti-Corruption Commission warned Zaev earlier that he should not take over the Finance Ministry because of a conflict of interest.  

The reshuffle drew reactions from both the ruling coalition and opposition VMRO DPMNE with Zaev’s SDSM and its coalition partners saying the government was reshuffled in response to the expectations of the population and the opposition saying the changes were purely cosmetic.