Following his latest election postponing trial balloon, Zoran Zaev today insisted that the elections will be held on April 12, but he still left enough room to change his mind. Zaev’s latest excuse for postponing the elections is the failure of his SDSM party to come to terms with VMRO-DPMNE about the new PPO law on state prosecutors.

On Monday Zaev said that the elections will be canceled if the Parliament doesn’t adopt the law before it dissolves on February 12. After sparking outrage on the right, but also mockery that he can’t conceal his worry from the outcome of the coming elections, Zaev today insisted that “there is no need to postpone the elections after April 12”. But his latest position was still qualified by the PPO law.

We are reviewing the amendments, including those from the independent group. We are in a position that the Government is seriously considering what is acceptable to us and what is unacceptable – we can’t go past the EU red lines, Zaev said before adding that the SDSM members of Parliament will not allow the Parliament to be dissolved, and with that would block the elections, unless the law is adopted.

Zaev relied on the judiciary in his power grab as well to maintain his party in power, using prosecutors to ensnare the opposition into hundreds of criminal cases, but if the proposals are accepted, Zaev himself could face some scrutiny for prosecutors for the many corruption cases linked to his Government.