Several days after being summoned to Washington, D.C., to report to the U.S. Vice President and the Secretary of State, who had expressed serious concerns about the situation in Macedonia, PM Nikola Gruevski said he accepted the opposition's challenge to test the support of the people in early elections.

Blogger Neutralec (“The Neutral One”) reported [MKD] by posting his comments and a video of PM's interview:

Yesterday on Sitel TV, our Prime Minister and the president of the biggest political party [VMRO-DPMNE] exclaimed that he would duel with [Branko Crvenkovski], and announced readiness to organize early elections just like in 2008. During his interview yesterday, Mr. Nikola Gruevski said that he planned to devote this year to economic growth and finishing of the ongoing reforms, but this would change if [the leader of the biggest opposition party] accepted the challenge, implying that [SDSM]'s wish for elections would be the reason for slowing down Macedonia's progress. I wrote against the early elections two months ago, and I am still against it. [Grujo], [Branko], [Ljubčo] or [Ljube] should measure and compare their members somewhere else. The taxpayers’ money will be wasted on printing ballots and the circus of 20 days of election campaign and 2 days of electoral silence. However, the TV stations and the printed newspapers will have a great time, because they will earn a bunch of money, which will come from the pockets of the citizens, one way or another.

The representatives of the biggest opposition party took their time responding, as their official statement came a day later. In the meantime, right-wing blogger Alek Careca published a taunting post, [MKD] which included an old video clip from the satirical TV show K-15. In the clip, made before the elections several years ago, various persons call Branko [Crvenkovski] to come out.

In a comment to Careca's post, left-wing blogger Barabbas posted a link [MKD] to a news item that claimed that in the biggest opposition party's headquarters, the assembled members waited for the official response by their leader while listening to the song “Pada vlada” (The Government is Going Down).

The song is from the Serbian film The Professional (2003), sung by the popular pop-rocker Bajaga.

A bit later, Barabass also reacted [MKD] to and passed the latest news:

Gugi decided to play the hero, and threw in his glove. B.C. also wanna play tough – let's do it in June [MKD]. We all know what will follow – “BC pussy, Grujo the bluffer, the scared opposition, administration lost in space and time, blah blah blah… Sincerely, I couldn't care less about their perceptions. As a citizen, I consider all elections good, because before the elections, the government steals a bit less and spends part of the public funds to truly satisfy the needs of the citizens, so they can get more voters. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, let there be elections every year.

The situation is not quite straightforward. The government says the elections can take place in April (allegedly, while the government still has favorable ratings to ensure the majority vote). The opposition agrees to get back to the Parliament and take part in the preparations for June, only if the conditions [MKD] they claim would ensure fairness are met.