Ivan Stoiljkovic from the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia said that the party does not accept the outcome of the census, in which the Serbs were estimated at 1.3 percent, or 23,847 citizens. The party will organize a separate census for the Serb minority in Macedonia.

We do not accept the fake results of the census. We don’t trust the current Government and have no intention to lend legitimacy to the perfidious destruction of our people. We hope that with support from our homeland, in the second half of the year we will be able to conduct an electronic or on-the-ground census of in which all who consider themselves to be members of the Serbian people will be able to be counted, Stoiljkovic said.

He added that those who participate in this census will be given a certificate, that they will be able to use when claiming political or social benefits. “We won’t just consider everyone whose name ends on ‘ic’ to be a Serb. Those who don’t have this certificate will be considered imposters”, Stoiljkovic added.