The statement from Arben Ziberi, head of the Public Health Institute and an important part of the team tasked to propose policies to fight the coronavirus, caused outrage. Ziberi, who comes from the DUI party, boasted how he influenced the Commission on infectious diseases to open the borders so that tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian diaspora members could come from  Germany, Italy, Switzerland and other countries, and vote for DUI. The Government announced that borders will open, without the requirement for arriving citizens and passengers to show a negative coronavirus tets, or to go to self-isolation, starting Friday.

This shows that the Commission members lied to the the public when they said that their decision to reopen the border was  not driven by politics. The Government spread fake news and lied to the public. With this, Prime Minister Spasovski and the head of the Commission doctor Zarko Karadzovski are directly joining in DUI’s campaign to have an ethnic Albanian named Prime Minister after the elections, said journalist Nenad Mircevski.

DUI is calling on the Albanian diaspora members to come to Macedonia despite the huge spike in coronavirus cases after the Muslim month of Ramadan, and to vote for DUI so that the party could pressure the winning Macedonian parties – VMRO or SDSM – to appoint an Albanian as Prime Minister. Ziberi bragged about his move in the Committee on an Albanian langauge outlet, apparently thinking that his comments won’t reach the Macedonian public, or not even caring whether it will provoke a reaction. Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce said that he may dismiss Ziberi from his position, but did not say whether the decision to open the borders will be reversed in light of this shocking admission. Filipce’s SDSM party is also counting on the Albanian diaspora vote.