VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Vladimir Misajlovski called on the officials from the ruling SDSM party who endangered public health to immediately resign. Misajlovski spoke as half a dozen of top SDSM officials went into quarantine after the party Vice President Muhamed Zekiri tested positive.

While most other parties want elections to take place when it will be safe to do so, SDSM has been conducting a campaign and pushing for a vote on July 5, and this has included meetings with voters as well as distributing food packages as bribes in poor neighborhoods across the country. This, coupled with the curfew violations during the Muslim month of Ramadan, led to the current spike in the epidemic, with record seven deaths reported today and almost 90 newly diagnosed cases.

Through the entire 2nd electoral districts SDSM was distributing propaganda material, flour and potatoes, not caring whether it will spread the virus, or that it amounts to vote buying. Is this your new normal? We have a Black Monday in Macedonia. I wish all the SDSM officials who are infected good health, and I wish that reason guides you in the coming period and you set aside your political interests for just a moment, Misajlovski said.

Zekiri and tax authority chief Sanja Lukarevska tested positive, and a number of other top officials, including Deputy Prime MInister Mila Carovska and Public Administration Minister Damjan Mancevski will go into quarantine after attending pre-election meetings with Zekiri and Lukarevska, or party campaign events with infected officials. Despite the record number of deaths and the cluster in the leadership of his own party, SDSM leader Zoran Zaev today insisted that elections will take place on July 5, a date that has not been approved by other parties.