Prime Minister Zoran Zaev insisted that the census must take place as planned, in September. Zaev is ignoring growing protests from the public, concerned that having an in-person census will add to the already fast growing number of coronavirus cases.

I urge you to be serious. We haven’t had a census in 20 years. We will have a census, we must have a census. After 20 years? What are we? A nation, a state? We must have a census, Zaev insisted.

He has apparently promised to the Albanian parties his Government depends on to allow a census that will count ethnic Albanian emigrants as actual residents – thus inflating the Albanian share of the population. Emigrant groups have already organized to add their members to the census electronically, but the more difficult portion of this exercise – counting the residents, was postpone from April to September because of the high infection rate. But, after a calm summer, the number of cases is spiking again and is already at April levels.

Zaev expressed hope that the number of cases will begin to reduce, and insisted that Tetovo and Gostivar, the two majority Albanian cities hit hard this month after hosting tens of thousands of emigrants during the summer, have seen their number of cases plateau. Zaev dismissed the option of introducing a quarantine in this part of the country.