The Parliament concluded its discussion for today on the proposal to postpone the April census for September. The Committee on European Affairs approved the proposal but it is being delayed by over 100 amendments that were submitted by the opposition Albanian parties – the Alliance of Albanians and Alternative. US Ambassador Kate Byrnes met with the leaders of these two parties to get them to withdraw their amendments and allow the census to be postponed.

The bill should be discussed before the Parliament tomorrow. The Statistics Bureau already decided to postpone the start of the census, which was supposed to begin today, even though the original law announcing a census in April is still valid.

VMRO-DPMNE official Timco Mucunski said that besides the postponement of the census, the party will demand other changes to the process, to make it more legitimate and to reduce area for fraud. This can be done in the bylaws, Mucunski said.

Albanian parties are eager to see the census go ahead as they had it agreed with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev – with massive registration of ethnic Albanian emigrants along with the actual residents of the country meant to increase the Albanian share of the population.