The opposition VMRO-DPMNE proposes postponing the census for a year, following the example of Germany, as well as removing the dual signatures, which indicates that this statistical operation is actually political. Party leader, Hristijan Mickoski, stated that in addition to these two things, they also require the use of fingerprint readers for people who live in the country.

That is why VMRO-DPMNE proposes firstly, to postpone it for a year. We have time until 2022, as Germany did, it is quite enough because we do not have elections. Secondly, we ask immediately if it is a statistical operation to remove the dual signatures because here I guarantee you that those signatures mean a political operation. Thirdly, to use fingerprint readers to count the resident population in line with Eurostat recommendations, which according to the new Electoral Code are envisaged to be part of the next local elections in October 2021. So, it is not an additional cost, those terminals must be procured anyway, Mickoski said in an interview with “Netpress”.

The leader of the opposition says that if all this is not accepted, and so far nothing has been accepted at the committee debate, and if SDSM continues with “violent procedure, abuse of the European flag, VMRO-DPMNE does not intend to recognize the census results, on the contrary it will strongly rejected them”.

According to him, the government is running the process for the upcoming census in a scandalous, non-transparent and wrong manner and that their goal is to conduct a political and not a statistical operation.

Mickoski believes that many of the recruited census workers will come from the SDSM and DUI structures.