A rare moment of light-hеarted moment in the tensе hour and a half long TV debate between Zoran Zaev and Hristijan Mickoski this evening occurred when the two were discussing the conditions necessary to have free and fair presidential elections in April and May. Mickoski reminded Zaev that the numerous cases of clear ballot stuffing during the September 2018 referendum, and other violations, were still not resolved.

If there are such cases, the institutions of the state should clear them out, Zaev said, to which Mickoski could not stop himself from laughing out loud at the thought that Zaev’s prosecutors would investigate the ballot stuffing done on his behalf.

No charges were filed in the ballot stuffing which occurred in dozens of voting stations in mainly ethnic Albanian parts of the country, where turnout was low during the day, like in the rest of the country, but suddenly spiked the last hour and half and reached near 100 percent levels. As turnout is monitored through the day, this clearly was seen as evidence of ballot stuffing, as in some places it meant that, in one polling station, a citizen voted on average every 2.4 seconds, and this pace was maintained for a period of more than an hour.

Zaev was desperate to drive up the turnout at the referendum and lined up visits from foreign dignitaries such as Angela Merkel and Jim Mattis, but ultimately failed to get Macedonians to support the name change, EU and NATO membership, and only had a turnout of 36 percent. The name change was then forced through Parliament, by means of blackmail and bribery of opposition representatives.

Despite not investigating this violation of election laws, Zaev insisted that Mickoski commits that he will not call for a boycott of the presidential elections, especially in the important second round when the turnout needs to be above 40 percent. Mickoski responded that, seeing how the opposition candidate Gordana Siljanovska is able to appeal to all sides of the Macedonian society, it is Zaev’s SDSM party which is preparing for a boycott after losing the first round.