North Macedonia has started working on the electoral reform. The work will start with the approval of some legal changes recommended by the OSCE-ODIHR. They’re related to violation of the Copenhagen criteria, efficiency of the complaints’ procedure and financing. Afterwards, the main topic will be the new Electoral Code.

“We will incorporate all remarks on the OSCE-ODIHR report. We discussed modalities on how to offer solutions. Experts as well as institutions will also discuss about it and they will have a concrete legal solution for it,” says the Minister of Justice, Krenar Lloga.

The coordinator of the parliamentary group of the largest Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration, Arbër Ademi, called for an electoral model that will end injustice towards Albanians.

“We’re interested that Albanians and other communities are not tricked. We need a model that reflects the heterogenous structure of the society. If we talk about a unit, we should also talk about the threshold, open lists and so on,” Ademi said.

Electoral reforms should conclude at least 6 months before the elections. It is quite likely that by next spring, North Macedonia will vote in both presidential and parliamentary elections.

“I’m optimistic about this and I hope we will come up with a proposal, while respecting deadlines that are set by European standards, so that the changes can be implemented in a 6-month period before the elections,” said Alexandar Novakovski, head of the working group.

The opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE was the only to boycott the working group on the electoral reform. However, they’ve made a public request for an electoral unit, because according to them, all deputies would be elected by an equal number of votes.