VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski said that the promised “operation broom” – removal of corrupt officials from the Government’s ranks, is just another false promise made by SDSM and Zoran Zaev. The move comes after many officials from the ruling SDSM and DUI parties were caught handing public sector jobs to their relatives, which contributed to the dramatic drop in support for the ruling coalition. In a staged event when he was theatrically given a broom, Zaev promised to remove many of his own officials, but is now changing tack and is threatening public sector employees hired before he took over the Government – apparently hoping to improve his rating by promising a purge and then distribution even more jobs among his party loyalists.

This is the cry of a defeated man who is selling the public his old tricks. He only cares about preserving his power, which is important to him for all the murky businesses he is involved in. Notice how none of the campaign ads for Zaev’s candidate Stevo Pendarovski feature Zaev. This is due to the fact that everybody knows Zaev is an anchor dragging his party and Pendarovski down, Mickoski said in an interview with the Press24 news site.

The oppositions leader promised that all injustices Zaev inflicts on the public sector with his purges will be reversed as soon as he is out of office.

Zaev is pressuring the public sector, he is pressuring the farmers, and these threats will intensify as the second round of the elections draws near. His threat to purge public sector employees who may support other parties is a direct threat that people will be fired if they don’t vote the way he wants them to. That is a clear sign of weakness and fear. I urge the public administration to act professionally and to ignore the threats. All who will be fired unlawfully will be restored in short order, said Mickoski.

Mickoski added that these threats of purges are in stark contrast with the pre-election statements Zaev made, when he insisted that Macedonia is doing great and that corruption has been tamed.