The largest and most important political entity of the Bosniak community in Macedonia, the Bosniak Democratic Union (BDS), has expressed doubts about the regularity of the census results.

The Bosniak Democratic Union, as a political party, at the beginning of the census process expressed doubts about the correctness of the process itself and certain irregularities. Unfortunately, our assumptions turned out to be correct. The census data is unacceptable for us because we are constantly working in the field and we know the real factual situation. Our remark regarding the census is the approach. Namely, we have personal testimonies of citizens who were registered according to assumptions about their ethnic and religious affiliation. The citizens did not have the opportunity to inspect the entered data at the same time. No less important is the remark about the difficult process of counting the diaspora. We have received remarks about numerous technical problems with the census application, due to which we are convinced and claim that the number of Bosniaks living outside the territory of Macedonia is much higher, the BDS said in a statement.

The party adds that they had publicly pointed out the shortcomings and even threatened to leave the ruling coalition, but were assured that the census would be conducted correctly and in accordance with all rules.

Unfortunately, the results do not show that and do not reflect the reality. Therefore, we point out that the census data casts a shadow over the work of state institutions and calls into question their functionality and trust. We demand that the results be reconsidered and that the irregularities be identified so that the results of the census conducted after two decades are realistic and meet the needs of the citizens, and not serve to party interests, say BDS.

Earlier, two other parties in the ruling coalition rejected the results and categorized them as untrustworthy.