Following Zoran Zaev’s press conference today, during which he even tried to blame the opposition for the major racketeering scandal, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski said that Zaev is simply trying to protect his own SDSM party from the consequences of its involvement in extortion and announced that, if the investigation keeps getting dragged out, VMRO will reveal additional details about the scandal.

Mickoski said that the opposition has received testimonies made by people involved in the racketeering scandal that revolves around Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva. Mickoski said that he will give the prosecutors a little more time to complete their work, but if the investigation turns into a cover up, VMRO will reveal the names of the Government officials who were involved in the scandal and are named in the testimonies.

Today we witnessed a panicked press conference, full of lies and slanders. Zoran Zaev, who has been the patron of criminals over the past three years dared accuse me of involvement in the racketeering scandal. A word of warning to Zaev: whistleblowers have given us the testimonies presented before the prosecutor who is investigating the case, as well as the forensics reports. My name is not in them. But there are names from the Government. We will not present these documents to the public as long as there is at least a minimum hope left that the investigation will be conducted objectively. But, if we realize that the public interest is being undermined, VMRO-DPMNE will publish all the documents, Mickoski said during a press conference today, while presenting the documents before the press.

The leaders two parties failed to reach agreement overnight on the fate of the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Mickoski said that the main purpose of Zaev’s proposals was to avoid having him and his associates investigated for corruption.

He’s a desperate man, sinking under the weight of his crimes, who only cares about maintaining his control over the judciiary. He needs that so he can continue to stage trials, put people in prison, but also avoid his own responsibility for racketeering and a number of other cases. He even wants to keep the investigation further away from Aleksandar Kiracovski, Frosina Remenski and the other SDSM party officials suspected of serious crimes. This is why we couldn’t reach an agreement yesterday. Zaev wants to legalize the crimes his side has perpetrated, Mickoski said.