VMRO DPMNE party

North Macedonia's main opposition VMRO DPMNE party on Wednesday pledged to continue daily roadblocks until the Social Democratic government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev "comes clean" over its ongoing talks with neighbouring Bulgaria over their history dispute.

North Macedonia's Organised Crime Prosecution on Wednesday filed charges against the country's fugitive former prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, and some of his former close associates, in a high-profile case linked to the illicit purchase of building sites.

The head of the main opposition VMRO DPMNE party in North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, told Alfa TV on Thursday that since his party revealed a passport forgery scam involving the police, he and his loved ones had received grave threats.

Monday's agreement between Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, the leader of the ruling Social Democrats, and the opposition VMRO DPMNE party leader, Hristijan Mickoski, to postpone the nationwide census for six months from April to September due to the COVID-19 crisis has angered members of the ruling coalition as well as opposition parties.

Two days before it was scheduled to start, North Macedonia's governing and opposition parties have agreed to postpone the long-awaited census for five months so that census takers and the wider population can get vaccinated first.

Tobias Zech, a legislator from the centre-right Christian Social Union, CSU, the ruling party in Bavaria and sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU, has quit after Germany's Spiegel revealed that he lobbied for Nikola Gruevski's ousted authoritarian regime in North Macedonia in 2016.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev on Wednesday unexpectedly asked North Macedonia's parliament to take an immediate vote of confidence in his cabinet after the main opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party claimed Zaev's wafer-thin majority in parliament was shaky, and that it could soon muster enough support to topple him.

North Macedonia's long-overdue national census, a key operation that the country has failed to carry out for 19 years due to ethnic and political interference, is already facing serious attempts to disrupt it.

In a first-instance verdict, the Skopje Criminal Court on Friday found the former head of the secret police, Saso Mijalkov, guilty on all three accounts, of criminal association, abuse of office and receiving a reward for illegal influence, handing him a jail sentence of 12 years.

Early general elections in North Macedonia, which were put on hold due to the COVID-19 crisis, will be held on July 15, the head of the main ruling Social Democrats, SDSM, Zoran Zaev, said on Monday, after striking a deal with the opposition parties.