Interior Minister Nake Culev said tha the has serious difficulties communicating with the head of the uniformed police BJB bureau director Saso Tasevski, who is a loyalist of SDSM party leader Zoran Zaev. The issues in the functioning of the Interior Ministry became clear as officers, apparently on orders from Tasevski, raided a restaurant in Skopje where opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski was having dinner, in an attempt to go after him for allegedly not maintaining social distance – at a time when dozens of SDSM officials are either infected or in quarantine for attending iftar dinners or campaigning.

I’m having difficulties in implementing my plans or orders, and I meet a lot of resistance, inside the Ministry and from the Government. Organizing police officers falls under the competence of the BJB director. As Minister I have the obligation to guarantee that all officers act in a non-selective and lawful manner, but I don’t have the jurisdiction to organize their work, Culev said.

The SDSM party tried to blame Culev for a lax approach toward the Ramadan iftar dinners that contributed to the current major new spike in the coronavirus epidemic, but the openly partisan police raid against Mickoski revealed that in fact it is the ruling party that controls much of the department. Culev was named Interior Minister by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party under an agreement meant to put an end to the abuse of the police for political purposes in the run up to the elections, but he has limited powers.