The State Electoral Commission will have the final word on the appointment of Risto Stavrevski as head of the Skopje office of the Interior Ministry.

Stavrevski was nominated by the interim Interior Minister Nake Culev, who has the right to appoint 15 department heads, but it’s being blocked by Culev’s deputy Slavjanka Petrovska from the SDSM party. Petrovska cited the cache of wiretaps which SDSM used to spark a deep political crisis in Macedonia in 2015 and subsequently grab power in the country, as a reason why she’s blocking Stavrevski, saying that his conversations were among those that are intercepted.

SDSM already blocked the original choice of VMRO-DPMNE for interim Interior Minister – Dragan Kovacki was withdrawn because he is a uniformed army officer.

Culev said that Stavrevski continued to serve in the Interior Ministry and received a high security clearance under SDSM, and there is nothing problematic with his appointment. Under the 100-days rule, the State Electoral Commission is called to clear up issues that develop between the department heads and their deputies who are appointed from rival parties. The caretaker Government is in place to prevent SDSM from abusing the police and other levers of power even further, in the 100 days period before the elections on April 12th.