According to VMRO-DPMNE deputy leader Aleksandar Nikoloski, the SDSM and DUI led Government is looking into abolishing the Special Prosecutor’s Office, after it has outlived its usefulness in targeting VMRO-DPMNE officials and activists.

Nikoloski cited the investigation into a series of inter-connected companies allegedly related to former intelligence chief Saso Mijalkov, as well as the investigations into DUI officials, as the reason why the Government has quickly soured on the prosecutors it has used so well in the past to target political opponents.

The first moment SPO acts in a way which is not 100 percent controlled by SDSM, they are moving to abolish them. It is a fact that the SPO is a politically driven service and there is no getting around that, said Nikoloski, who led the charge to dismiss Mijalkov from VMRO-DPMNE.

The former intelligence chief was later accused of helping SDSM recruit enough of the VMRO-DPMNE members of Parliament who faced politically driven charges, and getting them to vote in favor of renaming Macedonia. This, as well as allegations of joint business deals between Mijalkov and Vice Zaev, the brother of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, made the SPO’s investigation into his business a political liability. Therefore, the prosecutors who were allowed to violate the law and open new cases after the mid-2017 deadline they were bound to when they were targeting VMRO-DPMNE officials, were suddenly rebuked by the Supreme Court.

There are investigations into some of the top SDSM officials, who hold high positions in the Government, which the public still doesn’t know about, Nikoloski claims in an interview, saying this is another reason why the SPO is not longer viewed favorably by the Zaev Government.