Military Academy: Of 99 Applicants, Two Were Albanians, One Withdrew and the Other Ranked 43rd, for 29 Places
DUI says no Albanian cadet was admitted for the first time since 1995, and the Defence Ministry answers with figures from the call.
Skopje – 99 candidates applied to the call for cadets at the “General Mihailo Apostolski” Military Academy. Of them 95 are Macedonians, two Albanians, one Roma and one Vlach. 46 candidates met the criteria, and 29 places were available. This was announced by the Ministry of Defence on November 6, in response to accusations by DUI.
DUI earlier claimed that this year not a single Albanian cadet was admitted to the Military Academy, for the first time since it opened in 1995. “VLEN must explain what happened to the representation it promised,” the party says, adding that “representation is a principle, not a privilege, and it must not be held hostage to political calculations”. According to DUI, such cases undermine the spirit of the Ohrid Agreement.
The Ministry replied that DUI’s claims are “populist and sweeping accusations” that lead to “interethnic intolerance”, instead of a reasonable presentation of the facts. Of the two Albanian applications, one candidate withdrew and the other was ranked 43rd on the list. That is outside the 29 places, by the editorial calculation.
The Ministry says that fair and adequate representation means that citizens of the relevant ethnic community must apply to public and transparent calls. The call was published in two daily newspapers, in Macedonian and Albanian, and on the Ministry’s website, and the preliminary and final ranking lists were on the Academy’s website.
“The best of the best” is the principle from which the Ministry says it will not depart, because the officers the Academy trains are responsible for state security and the safety of citizens. At the same time, it says it will continue to value fair and adequate representation as a benefit for defence and the Army.
The numbers are clear, but they do not close the question. Two Albanian candidates are 2 percent of 99 applicants (our calculation), while Albanians are about a quarter of the population according to the 2021 census. That means that, according to the Ministry, the problem is above all the small number of applications, and according to DUI the result.
What is not clear from the statements: how many Albanians were among the 46 who met the criteria, what the reason was for the small number of applications, and whether there are earlier years in which Albanians were admitted, since the Ministry does not directly rebut DUI’s claim about the period since 1995.
The next step is the publication of the final list of the 29 admitted cadets. Until then, the two sides hold their positions: DUI asks for an explanation, and the Ministry says the process was open and transparent.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · November 7, 2026
