During Zaev’s term in office, he presided over a broad amnesty for prisoners with many ethnic Albanians receiving early release from prison, and the courts, which are apparently placed under his thumb, ordered the release of the ethnic Albanian Islamists sentenced for the 2012 Good Friday massacre.
But it’s not enough. While in Tirana for the Mini – Schengen summit, the outgoing Prime Minister was confronted by some of the protesters who are demanding that even more ethnic Albanians are released from prison, especially the terrorist group which carried out the 2015 attack on the city of Kumanovo. Zaev himself spread doubt in both the Good Friday massacre and the attack on Kumanovo, and his hints that he may provide new evidence to release both groups from prison helped him win Albanian votes. He delivered more than was expected in the eyes of the public, but not everything. Now, with elections fast approaching and Zaev’s SDSM party sinking ever further in the polls among ethnic Macedonians, he is facing calls from Albanians to go an extra mile if he is to get their votes.
The protesters in Tirana, who were chanting UCK – the name of the Albanian guerrilla group which fought in Kosovo (1999) and Macedonia (2001), were assembled mainly with Serbian President Vucic in mind, but the Tanjug news agency reports that a group of them, ostensibly from Macedonia, approached Zaev with a demand to release all of what they referred to as “Albanian political prisoners” – just like he promised to do when he was courting the Albanian vote in 2016.
Do we need to stage protests?, the group asked Zaev, to which he replied that it “won’t be necessary, all will be well”, the Serbian news agency reports.
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