PM Zaev comments on Several topics

Zoran Zaev

If Stevo Pendarovski loses in the presidential elections to Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, early elections will be organised, according to PM Zoran Zaev. As he said on Monday, his party, SDSM, still has a lead oever VMRO-DPMNE, but it is small. The PM also stated on Monday that he didn’t expect President Gjorge Ivanov to amnesty somebody before the end of his term because there wasn’t a legal opportunity for that. “There is no case about which such an opportunity will exist. Those amnestied received that opportunity with a special law adopted by us in an inclusive process,” the PM pointed out. Regarding the talks with the opposition on the part of the Public Prosecutor’s Office Draft Law concerning the Special Prosecutor’s Office, Zaev said they weren’t “bargaining over crime”. According to him, if the opposition decides against supporting the Draft Law, which requires a two-thirds majority, things should continue with the existing laws because, as he underlined, Macedonia must be set on firm legal grounds. Zaev added that the Council of Public Prosecutors, not Mickoski or he, chose prosecutors. The PM and SDSM leader made those comments after a court hearing over threats made against him on Facebook in 2016.