European Commissioner Johannes Hahn called on President Gjorge Ivanov not to give pardons to the victims of the political persecution perpetrated by the Zoran Zaev regime.

Hahn openly encouraged Zaev to use a mixture of a “Balkan and European” approach in order to push the name change through even after it was rejected by the voters in the September 2018 referendum. Zaev understood this as carte blanche and began a campaign of systematic persecution of opposition officials, including more than a dozen members of Parliament, and a combination of criminal charges and bribes got him the nine votes he needed to rename Macedonia into “North Macedonia”.

Now that the process in Parliament is completed, President Ivanov was urged by those opposition officials and activists who have been arrested to give them pardons before his term in office is up on May 12th. Specifically, the 16 political prisoners sentenced to long prisons stays over the April 2017 incident in the Parliament asked Ivanov for pardons.

In an interview with the Greek owned Nezavisen daily, Hahn told Ivanov not to give pardons to the group.

As on previous similar occasions, I can just advise the outgoing President not to interfere with ongoing judicial procedures, Hahn said.

President Ivanov still hasn’t made it clear whether he intends to pardon the victims of Zaev’s persecution. Zaev, on the other hand, announced that he will use all available means not to honor the pardons if Ivanov gives them, and to keep the opposition activists in prison for future blackmails.