Police raided a warehouse in Strumica this morning, where companies linked to Zoran Zaev were repackaging food meant to be used for bribing voters. The ruling SDSM party was apparently preparing a massive campaign of buying off the votes in the poorest neighborhoods in Strumica, Kumanovo and other cities in the run up to the April 12 elections, and after the elections were canceled continues to distribute sacks of potatoes, cooking oil and other food, now re-packaged as “coronavirus aid”.

The police briefed the public that they found individuals linked to SDSM as they were violating the evening curfew and were working in Zaev’s warehouse. Later the Interior Ministry officially reported that the officers found 11 people and packages with unknown contents – some of the men had permits to be out issued through a charity organization. Prosecutors ordered that the packages are inspected and the permits are examined.

Aleksandar Markovski from the NGO group that asked for the permits confirmed the raid and said that the documents that would prove the origin of the food they were planning to distribute should be sought from the Zaev family.

Previous incidents involving SDSM’s “food donations” included distributing potatoes in Kumanovo as the city was getting walloped by the coronavirus crisis…

…and distributing out of date cookies to Roma families through an affiliated NGO organization in Skopje.