Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi, from Zaev’s coalition partner DUI, said that he is not certain that the agreement to postpone the census for September will be accepted by the Parliament. Albanian parties in Macedonia are angry after Zaev and VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski reached an agreement today to postpone the census given the major spike in the coronavirus epidemic. Albanian parties are hopeful that they will use their influence over Zaev to ensure a census that will count Albanian emigrants and dual, triple citizenship holders into the registry of residents and inflate the Albanian share of the population.

I oppose postponing the census. We held elections in the midst of the pandemic. It is my opinion that it should not be postponed. Still, there is a procedure and we will see how it goes, Xhaferi said.

The Albanian opposition parties also condemned the agreement and accused DUI of failing to advance Albanian national interests.