A citizens’ initiative from today until Thursday in the regional offices of the State Election Commission in Skopje and Bitola will once again collect signatures to initiate a referendum, for citizens to vote on the bill on textbooks and teaching materials in primary and secondary education, after their initiative was not accepted in the Parliament last week because the signatures were not collected in accordance with the Law on Referendum.

The Parliament’s Committee on Political System and the Legislative Committee on Wednesday concluded that their initiative was not okay because it was not submitted in the form provided in Articles 66 and 70 of the Law on Referendum, ie signatures were not collected in front of an authorized institution and a sign and a stamp from the institution were also required.

The initiators acting together in a Facebook group announced that they have submitted a request to the SEC to open election bodies to collect the first 100 signatures from citizens needed to form a proposal for initiating a referendum at the state level, which they will submit again to the  Parliament. According to the authentic interpretation of the Law, the signatures of the citizens are submitted on a form before the state administration body, ie the regional offices of the SEC, responsible for recording the voting right, during working hours.