Journalist Mladen Chadikovski, who was the chief editor of the now-defunct A1 TV in 2011, on Monday took the witness stand at the trial of the election fraud case commonly referred to as “Titanic”.

He told the court that shortly before the elections he had been handed over a list of names of people, who were VMRO-DPMNE officials and voters. After being handed over the list by a source, Chadikovski said he had decided to further investigate the case together with the journalists Sashka Cvetkovska and Natasha Stojanovska.

“We started investigating as we didn’t want to release the documents as they were. We recorded the people we called on the phone and we told them we were from the VMRO-DPMNE Communications Center. Their responses confirmed what was in the list,” Chadikovski said.

Asked by the defendant Gordana Jankulovska, he said that no one who was standing trial for election fraud was on the list.

Taking the witness stand, journalist Cvetkovska said the list included telephone numbers and numbers of polling stations were those on it should have voted. “It included people who got jobs through the state apparatus. Since they had party privileges, they were required to secure 15 to 30 votes depending on the post they had in state institutions. Most of them were appointed in managerial posts as well as people working in education and the healthcare,” she said.

In addition to ex-interior minister Jankulovska, 19 people are charged with various crimes related to election rigging in 2011 and 2013, including ex-transport minister Mile Janakieski, former VMRO-DPMNE top official Martin Protugjer, and MP Ilija Dimovski.