Convicted Macedonian ex-premier’s asylum plea puts Orban on spot

Bloomberg

The convicted former prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia said he has fled to Hungary and applied for political asylum there, challenging Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s balancing act between mainstream European politics and its nationalist fringe.
Orban faces a tough decision. He can grant asylum to Nikola Gruevski, the Macedonian leader who escaped to Hungary to avoid starting a two-year prison term for abuse of office, and further erode his image among Europe’s mainstream political elite. Or he can reject it and abandon an ally
he campaigned for and possibly anger Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It’d be embarrassing for Orban at home and abroad to grant the asylum request to a convicted Balkan politician,” said Attila Juhasz, an analyst at Political Capital in Budapest. “There’s nothing that would explain it, except for the Russian influence.”
Macedonia’s current government has accused Gruevski, who led the Balkan nation for more than a decade, of deliberately fuelling a decades-old dispute with neighbouring Greece, which has blocked it from joining the EU and the NATO.
That made him an awkward ally for Orban, who has campaigned for Gruevski despite always pushing for EU expansion into the Balkans.
Gruevski said he had escaped to Budapest just as he was about to begin a two-year jail term.