VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski spoke in an interview with TV Alfa about the census law which was voted in the Parliament with a European flag and without consensus. He stressed that this law, with which the census results have already been agreed between the coalition partners SDSM and DUI, will not provide a realistic picture of the number of citizens living in the Republic of Macedonia. And that’s why, VMRO-DPMNE will launch an initiative to collect signatures from citizens to nullify this  census law and adopt a new one.

The opposition submitted more than 30 amendments during the Parliament debate and none of them was accepted. If the Government wanted to have an inclusive process and to include the opposition led by VMRO-DPMNE, then it would have done so. It is obvious that it wanted to forcefully push this census process by abusing the European flag. And why did it do that? We have reasonable doubts, but in the coming days the Government itself should make public how it plans to implement it, because they do not have much time to conduct a credible census that should be completed in April this year, said Mickoski.

Moreover, he said, VMRO-DPMNE proposed the application of fingerprints readers for the census – something that should be applied in the local elections in six months. But even that was rejected by the Parliament majority.

Mickoski said that VMRO-DPMNE also strongly opposes, the political rather than statistical operation, which also requires dual signature. Meaning the signature of Zaev’s servant – the director of the State Statistical Office and his deputy who is practically nominated by DUI, he said.

Why do we need that dual signature if we really want to have a statistical operation. Therefore I can only conclude that this operation is everything but a statistical operation, it is a political one and practically the results are agreed beforehand and the dual signature is just to ensure security. , Mickoski said.

Regarding non-participation in the census, Mickoski said that every citizen has the right to decide whether they will participate or not.

But what is symptomatic is hearing the Minister of Health saying that it is safe for this operation to take place in the midst of the pandemic, despite the fact that the United Nations has issued a recommendation saying that it is not safe for a census to take place during the pandemic, he said, adding many countries have postponed their census.