Macedonia’s Ahmeti Calls for Census Delay

“Bearing in mind the atmosphere in the country, I think the census should be postponed to a better time” the DUI head Ali Ahmeti told the media after his Tuesday meeting with the Slovenian foreign affairs minister Samuel Zbogar.

Ahmeti argued that it would be wrong for the census to take place amid political campaigning for elections  expected in May or June. He said that it would be best if the census was held after the polls, suggesting October or November as alternative dates.

The head of Macedonia's Census Commission, Vesna Janevska,  has also suggested that postponing the census was a viable option if the forthcoming general election campaign is deemed likely to interfere with the census.

The government, led by the conservative VMRO DPMNE party and the opposition Social Democrats have yet to agree on an exact date for elections that have been slated following a period of political gridlock caused by an opposition boycott of parliament.

Although Ahmeti said he had already talked about this issue with the Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of the VMRO DPMNE, Gruevski himself has not  publically shared his view on the matter. The census is a hot issue that raises tension between the Macedonian majority and the country’s ethnic Albanians who make up one quarter of the population.

Some Albanian opposition parties say that they fear the census will be abused in order to indicate a lower number of ethnic Albanians in the country than the reality on the ground. Some Macedonians, meanwhile, fear the exact opposite.

The country came to the brink of an all out ethnic war in 2001 during the six month long armed conflict between ethnic Albanian rebels and the security forces. Hostilities were brought to an end following the signing of the Ochrid Agreement which guaranteed greater rights to the ethnic Albanian community.