Resignations Mar Start to Macedonia Census

All the teams of census-takers had started work "and so far we have no major problems”, the head of Macedonia's State Statistical Office, Blagica Novkovska, told Balkan Insight.

Novkovska proclaimed the start of the Census on Saturday. If all goes well the census is due to last till October 15 and its results are expected in approximately six weeks from now.

The start of the head count was marred by a strong confusion over whether Macedonian citizens who have been living in other countries for more than a year should be taken in to account.

This provision mainly concerns ethnic Albanians, as many of them leave and work in foreign countries.

While ethnic Albanian and Turkish members of the Census Committee insisted that they should be listed, the head of the Commission, Vesna Janevska cited the rules of the European Statistical Agency, EUROSTAT, saying that these people should be listed where they currently live.

After a several days of failed talks in the commission, the deputy head, Abdulmenaf Bexheti, an ethnic Albanian, resigned on Thursday without explaining his exact motives.

Janevska’s own resignation followed on Friday afternoon. She said she was going because she suspected a “big census forgery is being prepared”.

“My Albanian and Turkish colleagues from the Commission have not left a minimum space for trust that this census will be carried out in a proper way,” Janevska said later that day.

Janevska said that her colleagues had raised objections even to the most basic rules, such as not accepting photocopies of ID cards as a basis for data.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski on Saturday assured that the government would do all it could to prevent possible irregularities.

“There is mistrust inherited from the past. Across the Balkans different ethnicities [always] fear that the others will forge the results,” Gruevski said, adding that “we will put maximum efforts to ensure an authentic and just process”.

The Macedonian census is being monitored by EUROSTAT teams. The head of EUROSTAT, Peter Everers, expressed confidence that the head count would be carried out well.

He warned that a census “is a very complex and expensive operation”.

Macedonia’s last population census took place in 2002, one year after the signing of the 2001 Ohrid Peace Accord, which ended a short-lived armed conflict in the country between ethnic Albanian insurgents and the security forces.

The results of the census showed that 64 per cent of the population was Macedonian and 25 per cent were ethnic Albanian. Roma, Turks, Serbs and other minorities made up the rest.