Given the high rate of deaths and infections, VMRO-DPMNE proposes that the census planned for September is conducted using electronic means. The party’s Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski said that the State Statistics Bureau obviously can’t provide enough canvassers due to coronavirus fears, and that the citizens are also apprehensive of the entire operation.

The best option here is that we conduct an electronic census, which we’ve been asking for all along. A census without in-person visits of canvassers to the homes. This way we will avoid the spreading of the contagion and we will still determine the number of residents, avoiding the manipulations which the Government is trying to perform, Nikoloski said.

Macedonia hasn’t conducted a census since 2002, mainly because of demands from the Albanian parties that emigrants are counted as if they are full residents. Zaev agreed to this demand and this spring Albanian parties and organizations began enthusiastically adding the emigrant Albanians to the list, but the operation was suspended due to the huge spike in coronavirus cases. The census was postpone for September, in the anticipation that the pandemic will abate by then, but Macedonia is now having another huge wave.

An electronic census would compare the already available data from banks, utility companies, border crossings, healthcare insurers and other institutions to determine which of the citizens actually reside in the country.

Nikoloski also said that the number of citizens who applied to be canvassers is so low because it’s widely understood that only those linked to the ruling SDSM and DUI parties will be accepted. The Zaev regime offered to order public sector employees to act as canvassers, if the number of volunteers remains so low. Apostol Simovski, who runs the DZS state statistics bureau and organizers the census, said that DZS will not require canvassers to be fully vaccinated, only adding to the concerns in the public about allowing persons who have visited dozens of families during the day into their homes.