Macedonia Police Deny Tampering With Electoral Roll

The Macedonian Police Minister, Gordana Jankuloska, on Wednesday insisted her ministry was "clean" and was playing no role in management of the electoral roll.

Jankuloska’s statement came a day after the main opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM, as well as the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, disputed the accuracy of the electoral roll.

The SDSM said it believes at least 26,000 listed voters do not belong on the roll because they are either dead, or have fictional residencies in the country.

The party said it suspected non-existent voters were being kept on the roll, and would be used to tip election results in the government’s favour.

The opposition party also cried foul last week when police said they would continue issuing IDs to people in a shortened procedure, even after the official checkup of the electoral roll ends on March 30. The police insisted that this move is necessary to ease voting.

“The police are manipulating the public because issuing IDs in shortened procedure only makes sense during the public inspection of the electoral roll,” the SDSM secretary general, Oliver Spasovski, said.

“The [Police] ministry conducts all activities prescribed by the law with maximum professionalism,” Jankuloska replied, dismissing opposition claims as “self-promotion attempts”.

The Police Ministry is the only institution in Macedonia that keeps an operational registry of citizens’ IDs, which is the basis for the country’s electoral roll.

However, Jankuloska insisted that the content of the electoral roll is exclusively in the hands of the State Electoral Commission, DIK.

“As for the electoral roll, I cannot answer whether someone will be erased...