VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski said that the opposition will accept elections to be held when it is guaranteed that no voter will be infected with the coronavirus. His remarks come days ahead of the meeting of party leaders where the ruling SDSM party is expected to push for so-called “corona elections” to be held as soon as possible, hoping that lower turnout and restrictions on campaigning will help them.
It’s good that we are finally having a meeting of party leaders, an option which SDSM tried to avoid. It will send a good message to the citizens that we can talk about the most important issues together. We will come out with a plan of our own that will lead to an exit from this political situation through elections. What I can say is that the plan will also protect the health of our citizens because we can’t be brought into a situation where voters get infected with the coronavirus, or God forbid, lose their lives, just so we can have elections. VMRO-DPMNE wants elections at a time when we will be sure that not a single voter will get infected. We don’t want to win power at the cost of having hundreds of infected, or, losing tens of lives. We don’t want to walk over bodies, Nikoloski said.
Nikoloski expressed his doubt that Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce can be the unbiased public servant who will decide when conditions are ripe to hold elections. Shortly before the pandemic, VMRO-DPMNE was publishing a major expose on the inexplicable wealth of Filipce’s family, which has apparently bought a huge swath of land on Skopje’s pricey Mt. Vodno, for a bargain price.
Filipce was also accused of extortion in the Diamed scandal, along with his subordinate head of the FZOM public healthcare fund Den Doncev, who recently resigned his position and is currently consided a flight risk. He was eventually dropped from the list of candidates for Parliament put forward by SDSM, in a move that was likely linked to the corruption revelations.
I don’t know many people who have 15.000 square meters at such a desirable location in Skopje. We published evidence about this property deal. These elections are all or nothing for Venko Filipce, they will determine whether he will be held accountable for his actions or not. Our actions were put on pause because of the coronavirus epidemic, but we have much more to reveal about him, Nikoloski said.
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