With 61 votes in favor, the Parliament elected one of the top cronies of the Zaev regime in the judiciary, judge Dobrila Kacarska, to the Constitutional Court.
The ruling majority made up of SDSM, DUI and BESA, which has struggled to gather enough votes to even begin sessions, made this appointment its top priority, even as members of Parliament have struggled with Covid-19. The appointment of Kacarska should help the regime in future legal challenges, such as the narrowly averted move to end some of the main examples of politically motivated persecution of opposition officials.
Kacarska is one of the key enforcers of judicial moves against the opposition. She presided over the major April 27 trial which was used to pressure three members of Parliament from the opposition into voting for the imposed name change in 2018, as they were threatened with lengthy terrorism sentences, sentences she handed down to over a dozen opposition activists and officials.
SDSM were helped in beginning the session of Parliament, which also requires 61 votes, by Dimitar Apasiev from the small leftist-populist Levica party. While a staunch critic of Zaev and a law professors aware of the quorum needed to begin the session, Apasiev, unlike the rest of the opposition, came to the Parliament. He used the opportunity for posturing against Speaker Talat Xhaferi and to demand an urgent discussion on the deepening crisis with Bulgaria, but the real effect of his presence was to allow the process on Kacarska to move ahead.
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