Gostivar Mayor and top official of the Alliance of Albanians Arben Taravari says that he doesn’t believe a census will actually take place this year, despite all the pressure coming from the ruling SDSM – DUI coalition. According to Taravari, there are serious issues with the plans put in place.

It’s almost February, the census is in April, and preparations haven’t started yet, Taravari said.

His party supported the controversial census law which is meant to boost the ethnic Albanian share of the population by counting emigrants as residents, but Taravari refused to appear to a conference in the Parliament today, which included top Government officials led by Zaev and Pendarovski, for a meeting with mayors. Taravari said that the mayors are mostly from the SDSM party anyway, so his suggestions in such forums are usually ignored.

In a statement to the press, Zaev insisted that the census must take place because “no-one will invest in our country if we are using 20 years old statistical data”. The opposition responds that collecting inaccurate data for political purposes and counting people who left the country long ago as current residents doesn’t help in this situation.