The President of the State Electoral Commission Oliver Derkovski said that the conditions to hold elections are currently not met. He warned that there is no possibility to ensure that voters and members of electoral boards maintain a distance of 2 meters and operate under masks.
Derkovski responded to the push by the ruling SDSM party to have elections as soon as possible, with June 14 being mentioned by SDSM official as their proposal. The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, which nominated Derkovski, insists that SDSM leader Zoran Zaev is pushing the election date far too ahead, before it is safe to vote, because he fears that the continued economic decline will reduce his odds even further.
SDSM candidate in the State Electoral Commission Boris Kondarko, on the other hand, followed the party line and said that the SEC should hold elections whenever party leaders tell the Commission to do so. Kondarko and Derkovski are also at odds over the state of preparations so far. The elections that were scheduled for April 12 were being prepared for weeks before the elections were called off due to the coronavirus. SDSM demands that the preparations resume from where they left off, in order to push the election date forward. But according to Derkovski this is not possible and all preparations need to begin from the start. Derkovski pointed to issues such as the need to allow citizens who have moved, or citizens who have newly come of age, to be added to the electoral rolls, as well as the need to allow citizens whose identity documents have expired to apply and receive new documents which is necessary for them to be able vote.
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