SDSM party leader Zoran Zaev announced that he will run his election campaign on re-heated promises of justice and fight against corruption. After the Colored Revolution movement that pushed Zaev to power dissipated under the weight of criminal charges and corruption cases that
VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski called for a large raly in Skopje on Tuesday, in light of the latest revelations that former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev was abusing the judiciary for criminal and political gains.
You all heard the tape. Zaev is abusing his office and is directly influencing judicial outcomes. The Prime Minister was both judge, jury and prosecution. Prosecutors who should investigate his actions are in his lap, and remain silent. But VMRO will not be silent. I call you to join us on a protest march in front of the state prosecutor’s office in Skopje and the Supreme Court. There must be accountability for what Zaev did.
The recording that was released on Sunday shows Zaev discussing the cases Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva initiated and saying how both Janeva and Supreme Court Chief Justice Jovo Vangelovski can’t do anything without Zaev’s say-so. The then Prime Minister is apparently discussing ways to bring down some of Janeva’s cases, using either the new law on state prosecutors or the Supreme Court. Zaev was overtly blackmailing members of Parliament to side with him and was using charges initiated by Janeva against them, and now he claims that some of them recorded their conversations, but VMRO-DPMNE official Antonio Milososki, who released the tape, says that it was recorded during a meeting Zaev had with a person involved in the Racket trial.
During a press statement today, Mickoski noted that Zaev acknowledged the authenticity of the recordings, but dismissed his claims that Zaev was simply trying to ensure full and transparent fight against corruption with his actions.
He now tries to tell the public that he was working to sav the cases started by the Special Prosecutor. Are we to believe that he was meeting with the “Gang of eight” and was persuading them that it is good for them to be sentenced in the cases against them? The same cases which we see are now falling one by one? The audio material proves that he tried to drag out the Special Prosecutor’s cases and that Katica Janeva was aware of this. His plan to end the cases in failure was either through the new law on state prosecutors, or, as he says, through a decision of the Supreme Court which he describes with a “WHAM BAM”, Mickoski said.
The opposition leader added that Macedonia can’t expect to have a European future if the Prime Minister is instructing the judiciary. “Our protest will be a message to those covering up Zaev’s injustices in the judiciary. This country rests on justice and the rule of law, on our struggle for independence and freedom, on Macedonians fighting for their rights. We must rise up against this violation of our laws and the Constitution that is our duty”, Mickoski concluded.
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