SDSM party leader Zoran Zaev called on President Stevo Pendarovski to extend the state of emergency for another month. The security council is meeting today, albeit in a greatly reduced format after interim Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski and other top officials involved in handling the epidemic such as Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce were possibly exposed to the virus during a visit to Kumanovo, and will review the proposal.

We need the state of emergency to efficiently manage the crisis, Zaev said.

But its unclear whether Pendarovski even has the authority to do so. The Constitution gives him the authority to declare a state of emergency for 30 days, a situation that has never been clarified with an accompanying law. There is a law on crisis management that allows that a crisis situation is declared, and the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party proposed that this much clearer law is used, but that is not regulated by the Constitution. Meanwhile Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi refused to reconvene the Parliament, that is dissolved for the now postponed elections, and this has removed another possible source of legitimacy during the crisis.

The far left Levica party insists that Pendarovski has a one-off right to declare a state of emergency over just one month, but not to renew it as he sees fit.

We strongly condemn the proposal that President Pendarovski can extend the state of emergency. That is contrary to what the Constitution says. He can at most declare a state of emergency over 30 days, Levica said, accusing the ruling SDSM party of using the constitutional clause to postpone the elections despite having sufficient authority even without this option to fight the coronavirus.