A month after the 2021 Local Elections ended, part of CIVIL’s team visited the Roma neighborhood in Kocani where during the election silence (on October 16, Saturday), a day before the voting in the second round on October 17, there were provocations, threats and pressure by VMRO-DPMNE MP Mile Lefkov together with the team of Infomax, and later VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski accompanied them in front of the police station, who told the Roma to remember him well.
CIVIL spoke with Shefi Mustafov, a resident of Kocani and member of the Party for Democratic Prosperity of the Roma (PDPR), which is in coalition with SDSM. He says that MP Lefkov and the team of Infomax came with the intention to provoke in the Roma neighborhood in Kocani, with the excuse that they came for the MP to give a statement, although it is unlawful to give statements to the media during election silence.
“They came to the Roma neighborhood with the intention to provoke, but luckily we refrained and did not succumb to the provocations, while we the activists of council member Aki Akiev from PDPR, stood on the street, in front of the headquarters that was closed. Then in front of the police station we encountered opposition leader Mickoski, who kept saying that we were threatening. I only said that after the elections, tomorrow we need to again have coffee, remain friends like before, because MP Lefkov is elected by the people”, says Mustafov.
“He added that with the change of the local government, the Roma community will be neglected, as about 90 percent voted for the SDSM candidate for mayor”.
Mickoski threatened us directly with the words ‘remember me well, remember my face’. We expect for there to be revenge in the coming period, which has already started to apply. I am no longer part of the project of the Swiss government that is implementing it together with the Public Communal Enterprise Water Supply- Kocani for updating data of already existing or illegal constructions and legalization of water supply, sewerage and so on… If SDSM had won, I would have still been part of that project, but VMRO-DPMNE won and my contract that was valid until November has already ended, they didn’t extend it, now someone else will replace me”, says Mustafov.
The newly elected Mayor of the Municipality of Kocani, Ljupco Papazov, from VMRO-DPMNE, through an SMS sent us a brief reply that he has no time to give us a statement, because he started his first day at work on Monday and needs time to deal with the huge obligations awaiting him.
Conversation led by: Diana Tahiri
text, camera and editing: Dehran Muratov
photography: Goran Naumovski
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
