The parliamentary resolution with a two-third majority for the Government draft constitutional amendments, was finally achieved in the late hours on Friday. Today’s day is in the sign of the expected visit of Mathew Palmer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Issues, the expectations of the Government for parliamentary unification for the draft-amendments, the criminal charges for hate speech and the ongoing trials of the SPO cases.

Mathew Palmer in Macedonia

Palmer met today with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Nikola Dimitrov, Minister of Justice, Renata Deskoska and with representatives of political parties.

At the meetings, Palmer had the opportunity to hear the interpretations for the latest political events in the country, the implementation of the Prespa Agreement, the reforms, as well as the Euro- Atlantic integrations.

The Government and draft amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia

The Government has a deadline of fifteen days, as a proposer of the constitutional changes, to submit to Parliament draft-amendments to the Constitution.

The procedure for forming a body for reconciliation started today in the Parliament of Macedonia, one of the four requirements that VMRO-DPMNE’s MPs who voted for constitutional changes have submitted to Parliament.

As a comment in regards to the demands of the MPs from the opposition who voted “for”, Prime Minister Zaev yesterday highlighted that he has had the opportunity to see four items and to read them very carefully. He stated that the drafting of the draft amendments will be with the participation of the opposition.

With the voting in Parliament on Friday, the first phase of the changes to the Constitution has completed. In the second phase, the draft-amendments need to be determined, and a simple majority is needed for this, or 61 votes in Parliament. The third and final phase is the adoption of the amendments, for which a two-thirds majority is necessary, or support of at least 80 MPs.

Announcements for changing the leader of VMRO-DPMNE

Today news spread on the social networks that there could be an extraordinary congress of the party, where the leader of the party would be changed.

VMRO-DPMNE supporters came out with information that Saso Mijalkov is behind the decision of the eight MPs from VMRO-DPMNE who voted “for” the constitutional amendments.

Another information that was commented quite a bit was also the one of the former President of the VMRO-DPMNE MC of Delcevo, Dragan Hristov, who considers that there is a scenario for resignation of Hristijan Mickoski through an extraordinary congress, and appointing Mitko Jancev as president of the party.

SPO cases

Today the court trials for the cases “April 27” and “Toplik” continue.

For the “April 27” case of the Basic Public Prosecution, a total of 33 people have been accused, of which 31 for terrorist endangerment of the constitutional order of the state, and two for incitement. For “Toplik”, the former Minister of Transport and Communication, Mile Janakievski stands trial, as the first accused for selling of state-owned land for the construction of the complex “Soncev grad” in Sopiste.

Observers – agitators

From the Referendum monitoring report, we outline the observers who were also the subject of monitoring of CIVIL’s observers.

In many cases, from the reports of CIVIL’s observers, various examples of irregularities can be noted, such as not carrying badges for identification and authorizations from the State Election Commission, and in a dozen noted cases, the observers did not even know which association they were coming from.

CIVIL also received several reports that the names and last names of voters coming to vote were read out loud and written down by other observers.

CIVIL continues to publish parts of the monitoring report of the Referendum, which was held on September 30, when citizens voted “for” or “against” accepting the Agreement between Macedonia and Greece.

B. Jordanovska