VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski discussed the on-going collapse of the Macedonian judiciary and asked “what else should happen before prosecutors begin investigate the allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the Government?” Mickoski reacted after the latest reports that organized crime prosecutor Vilma Ruskoska did not act on clear evidence of electoral theft against former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

The prosecutors are again covering up the crime perpetrated by the ruling party. Ruskoska is the protector of Zaev and his scandals. The electoral theft allegations case was opened and closed in 2018, ostensibly because of the lack of evidence. And we are now supposed to believe Ruskoska that Zaev is again innocent, even though everybody knows how he got the votes for the 2014 elections in Strumica and in previous and subsequent elections, Mickoski said.

The Italian La Verita newspaper reported excerpts from the evidence collected by the investigation against Zaev, evidence which is kept in the organized crime unit of the OJO state prosecutors’ office, which is ran by Ruskoska. This shows how Zoran Zaev and his brother Vice Zaev were paying Roma from Strumica between 10 and 20 EUR to vote for the SDSM party, were giving construction material or food in exchange for votes, and were going after people who wouldn’t vote for them. Zaev’s people would demand that voters take pictures of their ballots, a practice that is illegal in Macedonia in order to reduce such electoral pressures, and would make sure that those who didn’t vote or voted “wrong” would be fired, have their electricity cut off, or otherwise pressured.

This is just the latest in the long list of scandals, with Racket 1, Racket 2, the medical procurement scandals, the cannabis scandal… This current team of prosecutors is willfully blind to the crimes of the Government. This can only be resolved with a proper law on state prosecutors, and with a defeat of Zoran Zaev at the coming elections. Unless that happens, prosecutors like Vilma Ruskoska and Ljubomir Joveski will continue trying to defend the indefensible, Mickoski said.