At the proposal of the Security Council, which was accepted yesterday by the President Stevo Pendarovski, the Government is expected today to declare a crisis situation throughout the country for 30 days. As the Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced, the Steering Committee will propose to the Government to declare a crisis situation as soon as possible and it will be by tonight at the latest.

Extraordinary local elections in Stip and Plasnica, due to their mayors becoming MPs, are scheduled for December 13.

If the crisis situation is declared today, it would last until December 20. This period casts doubt on the role of the crisis situation.

Eight months ago, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE proposed the introduction of a crisis situation, primarily because it is regulated by law, without the possibility of broad interpretations, or with less chance of abuse.

Then Zaev’s answer was that a crisis situation will not achieve the desired effects, and Pendarovski said that the engagement of the army and resources does not require a crisis situation and that the state does not have the resources to declare a crisis situation throughout the entire country.

The way of declaring a crisis situation in moments when there are over 1,000 new cases and double-digit number of deaths every day is to gamble with the health of the citizens. During the Easter holidays, when daily there were 20-30 new cases and 2-3 deaths, a three-day curfew was introduced in Macedonia.

Today with huge numbers we have only a crisis situation, which is exactly calculated by Zaev to last after the elections in Stip and exactly before the beginning of the winter celebrations. It is very likely that a curfew will be introduced to provide resources and  have full control over the conduct of the elections in Stip.

The question is whether the crisis situation will be used for a real fight against the coronavirus or to fool the public that something is being done, while the pandemic continues to take lives due to incompetence. Additionally in the public there are dilemmas why in times of crisis Zaev conducts elections in Stip and Plasnica?