Macedonia Tapes Reveal Blatant Election Trickery

The ruling VMRO DPMNE party has orchestrated massive electoral fraud during the past elections, using fictive voters, fake ID cards, pressure on individuals and firms and misuse of police and administration, the opposition Social Democrats claimed on Friday.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE used systemic blackmail and other wholly unconstitutional mechanisms to rig the elections, the head of the Social Democratic Party, Zoran Zaev, declared on Friday, unveiling the latest tranche of wiretapped conversations.

"From the tapes you can witness how the group in power [around Gruevski] has been rigging and stealing elections, a practice unprecedented anywhere in the world," Zaev told reporters.

At a press conference, the opposition presented several groups of wiretapped conversations from the March 2013 local election involving what appear to be the Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska, Transport Minister Mile Janakieski and other top officials.

In one conversation, Interior Minister Jankuloska appears to substantiate opposition claims made during the past elections - that VMRO DPMNE bused in ethnic Macedonians from the Prespa region of neighbouring Albania, issued them with ID cards and placed them temporarily in addresses in Macedonia until election day, when escorts took them to the polls to vote for the ruling party.

However, she voices concern about one "risky" detail, which is that many of these foreign nationals issued with IDs had been placed at the same address, which might be spotted.
"There is one risky thing which we knew, and that's why we told the [local VMRO party] committees to give us more addresses," she says.

"You know we have 50 people in a flat of...