Main parties seek to postpone North Macedonia's April snap election due to coronavirus

By bne IntelliNews March 16, 2020

The leaders of North Macedonia’s two main political parties, the ruling Social Democrats and the opposition VMRO-DPMNE, are seeking to postpone the early general elections scheduled for April 12, due to the coronavirus, they said on March 16.

A meeting of the parties’ leaders to discuss delaying the election will be held at the office of the President Stevo Pendarovski on March 17.

"In these circumstances, it is more than clear that the conditions do not allow the normal conduct of the elections," head of SDSM and ex-PM Zoran Zaev said.

He added that instead of organising the elections, now is the time for every human, institutional and political resource to be devoted to protecting citizens and fighting the virus.

VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski also said that the elections should be postponed.

"Macedonia should not hold elections at time when prognosis say that the peak of the coronavirus will take place. With such analyses and forecasts, holding elections would mean the opening up of new outbreaks of the virus," Mickoski said.

North Macedonia's Health Minister Venko Filipce reported five new cases of coronavirus on March 16, which raised the number of people infected to 23. The first case of Covid-19 was detected at the end of February, a woman coming from Italy, who completely recovered from the illness and was released from hospital.

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