President Stevo Pendarovski, who announced that he will convene the Security Council to discuss the coronavirus next week, raised the issue of canceling the elections scheduled on April 12.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the elections were postponed a month or two, Pendarovski said, citing that similar plans are drawn up in Serbia as well.

Party leaders, including Zoran Zaev from the SDSM party where Pendarovski also comes from, yesterday said that they are determined to have the elections held on time, but will be curbing their campaigning. But now Pendarovski says that this option needs to be seriously considered, and cited the danger of voters abstaining because they are afraid of catching the coronavirus on the polling places.

I don’t want to impose my opinion but the elections include about a million people coming to 3.000 polling places, and 30.000 public sector employees being engaged for the day. I think that the parties need to revisit this issue in the coming days. Of course, this would have to be done on the basis of full consensus and without rushing the decision, Pendarovski said.