Interim Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski sent a request to the Parliament to remove the interim Labour and Welfare Minister Rasela Mizrahi from her office. The move seems designed to postpone the elections, as the Parliament is supposed to dissolve today.

The excuse to demand Mizrahi’s removal is that she held a press conference in front of a board bearing the name of the Ministry, that states Republic of Macedonia. Most other departments have switched to the imposed name “North Macedonia”, but VMRO-DPMNE, which nominated Mizrahi, is opposed to the forced renaming of the country. Mizrahi said that the board was left over by her predecessor Mila Carovska, and that she has no intention of replacing it. Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov joined in the push against Mizrahi, claiming that he received a verbal note from Greece demanding that Macedonia must use the name “North Macedonia” for all official purposes.

Early general elections are scheduled for April 12, and the Parliament is supposed to dissolve today, given the constitutional deadline of 60 days for organizing the elections. The ruling SDSM party is down in the polls and its leader Zoran Zaev has put forward a number of excuses why the elections should be postponed, the latest being his demand that the Parliament adopts a new law on state prosecutors. The request that Mizrahi is voted out is the latest such move. The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party submitted a motion to dissolve the Parliament and today its leader Hristijan Mickoski announced that the party will not participate in the further work of this legislative body.