Macedonia Diaspora To Get Own MPs

Macedonia's centre-right VMRO DPMNE-led government is pushing ahead with plans to allow Macedonians living and working abroad to vote in elections.

Aleksandar Novakovski, head of the State Election Commission, says some 116,000 Macedonians have declared themselves as living abroad and may be eligible to vote in future.

If all of them voted, it would increase the electoral roll of 1,700,000 registered voters by about 7 per cent.

“We have to adopt certain acts, determine the voting list for the diaspora and set up local election committees there,” Novakovski said, adding that polling stations would be placed in embassies and the consulates.

Critics say the nationalist government is forging ahead with the change because it believes most people in the diaspora share their nationalist sentiments.

Changes to the election laws that parliament has already adopted envisage increasing the number of legislators from 120 to 123. Three seats will be reserved for MPs from the diaspora, one from America, one from Australia and one from Europe.

The next general elections are set for 2012, though the opposition Social Democrats are pushing for snap polls.

"The revised [electoral] list will be ready by the end of the year," Novakovski added. He did not disclose how many allegedly fictional voters would be removed from the list.

International monitors from the OSCE and domestic monitors in the last general election in 2008 and at the presidential and local elections in 2009 complained of the high number of dead people on the electoral rolls. A project to revise and clean up the voting lists was launched in June.

Observers pointed to the fact that 1.7 million registered voters was an unreally high number for a country of just over 2 million people. Some estimates suggest that up to to 300,000 voters may be fictional.