North Macedonia has announced the postponement of the country’s general elections that were due to take place on 12 April. The decision was taken by the leaders of the country’s political parties due to the current Coronavirus outbreak.
Political representatives said that the health and lives of citizens is more important and the decision to postpone as announced by former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, the head of the ruling Social Democrats.
“The health and security of our citizens has no price. We have agreed there are no conditions to carry out the election”, he told reporters in Skopje.
“We decided that postponing the early parliamentary elections was possible and had to be done,” said Hristijan Mickoski, head of the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE, in a separate announcement.
North Macedonia, like many of its neighbouring countries, introduced a number of measures to combat the spread of the virus. These include a ban on public gatherings and allowing foreign nationals to enter. Today, the government also announced that it had ordered the closure of all borders and Skopje International Airport indefinitely. Ohrid Airport was closed on 15 March.
There are currently 26 cases of the virus in the country.
