The Minister of Internal Affairs, Panche Toshkovski, clarified to “Republika” why citizens without a valid ID on election day cannot use a passport with their old name to exercise their voting rights, even if the travel document remains valid. Voting with a passport under the old name is not in contradiction with the Prespa Agreement but constitutes a violation of the Law on Travel Documents, which specifies their invalidity after February 12, 2024. To address this issue, Minister Toškovski emphasized the importance of adopting amendments to this law in the Assembly, as he explained to “Republika.”

He disclosed yesterday that approximately 100,000 citizens will be unable to exercise their voting and constitutional rights, characterizing this as a classic example of electoral engineering.