Due to the lack of reliable census results in Macedonia, law professor and political activist Tanja Karakamiseva published data on the number of total citizenships issued in the country. According to Karakamiseva, the results show that ethnic Albanians amount to less that 17 percent of the total population, below the threshold of 20 percent which introduced in the Ohrid peace treaty as a level to active additional political rights.
According to Karakamiseva, Macedonia has issued 2.4 million citizenships, and out of them, 1.883 million (72.66 percent) of the recipients declared themselves as ethnic Macedonians and 375.601 (16.7 percent) said they are ethnic Albanians. Other minorities include Turks (3.85%), Roma (2.66%), Serbs (1.78%), Bosniaks (0.84%) and Vlach (0.48%).
Macedonia has not held a census since 2002, and an attempt in 2011 was stopped mid work after ethnic Albanian politicians demanded that people living outside of the country are also allowed to register as residents. Instead, the citizenship data are more available, and they show Macedonian citizens who live in the country and abroad.
The Ohrid framework agreement, put in place after Albanian nationalist guerrillas started a civil war in 2001, included additional political rights in the Parliament and the municipalities for any community which is above 20 percent of the total number of residents.
Karakamiseva, who recently faced harassment from the police for her comments opposing the Zaev Government, warned that there is a push toward the creation of “Greater Albania”, a union of Albania, Kosovo and Albanian majority parts of Macedonian, and posted the ethnic break-down of citizenships to illustrate the reality on the ground.
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