VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski denounced the draft census law and said that, if adopted as proposed by the Parliament, the opposition will begin a procedure to have it nullified. The Zaev regime is determined to hold a census in April, despite the high coronavirus infection and mortality rates, and wants to use it to include people who have moved out of Macedonia long ago.

A census is conducted once you have a national, societal consensus. Currently we don’t have it. All 40 amendments we proposed were rejected. Far more developed countries like Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Serbia and Croatia have canceled their census, due to the coronavirus. Under this law there will be no guarantee that one person is not using multiple ID numbers. There will be no verification of matching signatures. Our proposal to collect fingerprint data was refused citing high costs, which is a lie, Mickoski said.

He accused the Government of using a procedure meant to adopt laws that are necessary to align Macedonia’s laws to those of the European Union countries to fast-track the law, without allowing the opposition a chance to challenge it in Parliament.