Neither Mukoski, Arnaudov, nor Vasilevski voted for amnesty

Two days before the protest announced by the main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE against the arrests for the April 27 events, Parliament failed in the attempt to persuade the opposition party’s parliamentary group to push through a law for an overall amnesty for the so-called “Bloody Thursday”. Therefore, tomorrow, before the VMRO-DPMNE’s protest, it is expected that the proposal of the new parliamentary group will be found at the parliament, which would imply partial amnesty for the events in the Parliament when Talat Xhaferi was being appointed as the Parliament Speaker.

The bill on amnesty submitted by VMRO-DPMNE did not receive the required majority yesterday to be put on the agenda of the new parliamentary session. 25 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill to be passed shortly, while 59 were opposed. The three MPs excluded from VMRO-DPMNE because they voted to join the constitutional changes, who were charged for the April 27 events, were not present in the vote. At that point, they may have been in court at yesterday’s hearing on the violence in parliament, which was scheduled, then delayed. But the other four deputies from the new independent parliamentary group did not vote or were not present when deciding whether VMRO-DPMNE’s proposal would be on the agenda.

Nevenka Stamenkovska from the main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE said that this proposal covers all persons for whom a first-instance court decision has already been reached, but they have not yet received their court decisions, as well as for the persons who are prosecuted for terrorist threat to the constitutional order, as well as the persons which are covered by charges of participation and the like.

According to Stamenkovska, the law provides for genuine national reconciliation for all who took part in the events of April 27, and not selective reconciliation as Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and the parliamentary majority through the reconciliation body…

-Durlovski, Jovanovski, Damovski are not and cannot be terrorists or employees of the Ministry of Interior… The purpose of the law is national reconciliation and restoration of the normal flows in the country. We call on all parliamentarians from the parliamentary majority to give their support, to finally put an end to the divisions in the Macedonian society and to bring the country back to a normal course and to concentrate on real problems, Stamenkovska said.

Meanwhile, SDSM spokesman Kostadin Kostadinov assessed that a distinction should be made between those who ordered and committed violence, and those who were caught in the moment in the Parliament during the events on April 27th.

– There cannot be amnesty for those who planned, ordered and committed violent acts on April 27, Kostadinov said.

He said that in the near future it is expected that the guidelines and the forms for how the reconciliation would take place from the MPs from the independent parliamentary group of VMRO-DPMNE to emerge, as stated.

Former members of the VMRO-DPMNE parliamentary group, as announced, will present their version on Wednesday before the reconciliation body. According to the information, a full amnesty will be proposed for those who were not directly involved in the violence or in the organization of events on April 27th. For the others, the parliamentary group will propose requalification of the act, since most of the defendants are charged with terrorist threat to the constitutional order, which provides for a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. However, unlike the amnesty under parliament, it is a question as to how the possible requalification of the crime would be carried out, which is supposed to be decided by the prosecution or the court.

VMRO-DPMNE decided not to join the work of the reconciliation body, which has as many as 25 members.

(AMM)