Nikola Gruevski

The ruling VMRO DPMNE party has orchestrated massive electoral fraud during the past elections, using fictive voters, fake ID cards, pressure on individuals and firms and misuse of police and administration, the opposition Social Democrats claimed on Friday.

The European Union is ready to arbitrate in the worsening dispute in Macedonia over claims of mass eavesdropping by the government, the EU's foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, and Enlargement Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, said in Brussels on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski on Monday said the opposition's latest slew of wiretapped telephone conversations were aimed at sowing discord in the ranks of the government.

In new recordings that the opposition Social Democrats presented earlier on Monday, the minister is heard slating Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's policies as mad and irresponsible.

Opposition leader Zoran Zaev on Monday released the latest in a series of covert tapes, which he said were recordings of conversations between Finance Minister Zoran Stavrevski and Gordana Jankuloska that proved that the government was lying about country's finances being stable.

Gruevski, who insists that he has nothing with alleged wiretapping of more than 20,000 people, said that a press release issued by his VMRO DPMNE party had been misunderstood and was not calling for violence against government opponents.

Nine new wiretapped telephone conversations were published on Friday by the Macedonian opposition Social Democrat leader, Zoran Zaev, which allegedly show the Prime Minister telling a minister to raze a building owned by a political enemy.

More than 100 journalists in Macedonia have been lately subject to illegal wiretapping, Zoran Zaev, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats has argued.

Over a hundred Macedonian journalists were wiretapped, including the editors of pro-government media as well as journalists that critique the government, opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev announced on Wednesday while unveiling his fourth political "bombshell".

On his first visit to Macedonia, the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood policy and Enlargement negotiations, Johannes Hahn said opposition claims about government surveillance of thousands of citizens need investigating.  

SKOPJE - Macedonia fully supports Serbia's Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov said Wednesday in a meeting with Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic in Skopje.