Macedonia Scraps 'Failed' Census

The nationwide operation had already begun on October 1 and was scheduled to wrap up on October 15.

The government of Nikola Gruevski declared the census annulled on late Wednesday proposing to the parliament to do the same.

“On the ground we have seen technical flaws and a lack of readiness to conduct a census within 15 days,” Vice-prime minister Musa Xhaferi said, maintaining that a postponement “should not be seen as a catastrophic failure”.

The commission resigned citing disagreements on basic rules for collecting data. Ethnic Albanian members of the commission wanted to count people who had been living abroad for more than a year and accept photocopies of ID cards as a basis for data.

The others were against this, citing the rules of the European Statistical Agency, EUROSTAT. These say that people who have lived abroad for more than a year should not be included in a national census but should be accounted for in the countries where they now live.

The process was marred by ethnic rows from the start. Ethnic Albanian parties and NGO’s claimed the Macedonian majority on the commission had arranged the criteria with a view to lowering the true number of Albanians in the country.

Ethnic Macedonian organizations and parties responded by claiming that Albanians wanted to artificially increase the size of their community by including people who had long since left the country.

“This was the best way to relax the situation on the ground,” said Artan Grubi, one of the members of the commission. “The entire process was highly politicized,” he added.
 
Grubi said muddles inside the commission confused the census takers who did not know what rules to follow.

Four days before the census was due to end, “a large number of the census-taking teams was not yet formed and in several large towns like Prilep, Bitola and Tetovo only about ten per cent of the census was carried out”, Grubi added.

Speaking to Germany's Deutsche Welle on Wednesday, the head of the now defunct commission, Slobodanka Gievska, agreed that postponement of the census was the only option. She said collective resignation was a way to demonstrate collective responsibility for the failed process.
 
The statistical operation has already cost some 14 million euros. The government did not say how much of this money was already spent but estimates are that most of it was already used up.

The opposition Social Democrats accused the government of recklessness and of spending public money in vain.

EUROSTAT, which monitors the census, on Wednesday told Deutsche Welle that it will prepare a report and hand its recommendations to the government regarding the next head count.

Meanwhile, observers say all paritipants in the census are to blame for the fiasco.

“The parliament is to blame for passing a law on census that was susceptible to different readings, and the government is responsible for organizing the entire operation. But we must not forget all the oteher political factors that formed the [census] commission” says local political science professor and analyst Albert Musliu.