The Basic Court in Skopje approved the charges against Muhamed Zekiri, former chief of staff for Zoran Zaev, who is charged with corruption.

This means that Zekiri will face trial. He is suspected of hiring Croatian experts to conduct an expensive analysis of the feasibility of selling the Macedonian Post office and partially selling the Macedonian Railways. The contracts were done in a no-bid procedure, and the “experts” were paid more than a million EUR.

Zekiri is a former journalist who helped Zaev set up a short-lived Albanian wing of his SDSM party. Zekiri moved on the political turf held by the largest Albanian party DUI, but the initial expansion of SDSM in Albanian areas quickly lost its pace and SDSM is now badly dependent on the DUI vote to hold on to power.