Thousands of people rallied in Skopje on Monday (April 18) and crowds gathered in Tetovo, Kumanovo and Stip, demanding President Gjorge Ivanov revoke his decision to pardon dozens of politicians, mostly from the ruling nationalist VMRO party, including former prime minister Nikola Gruevski, accused of ordering thousands of illegal wiretaps.Demonstrators also want parliamentary elections to be postponed from June 5. The opposition, led by Zoran Zaev’s Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, wants the VMRO to do more toward allowing truly fair elections.
The country is deeply divided along ethnic lines, with the majority Macedonians and ethnic Albanians, who make up more than one-quarter of the 2.1 million inhabitants mutually mistrustful. On Monday, however, Albanian protesters joined the Macedonians in several places.
