June 6 (SeeNews) - Macedonian president Gjorge Ivanov said on Monday he is revoking all remaining controversial pardons, which deepened the political crisis in the country and fuelled heavy criticism from its western partners.
On April 12, Ivanov surprisingly halted investigations against 56 officials suspected of being involved in a wire-tapping scandal. Ten days ago the president withdrew the pardons of 22 officials, including the ex-PM and leader of the ruling VMRO DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, the leader of the main opposition party, socialist SDSM, Zoran Zaev, the leader of ethnic Albanian DPA, Menduh Thaci, parliament speaker Trajko Veljanoski, as well as current and former government officials, ministers, and mayors, among others. Neither the international community, nor protesters were happy with his decision.
"Since then, all the other persons had the opportunity to submit requests for their abolitions to be annulled in line with the law amendment," Ivanov said in a statement posted on the presidency's website. "However, despite declarations by some of them they would do so, so far no one from the pardoned requested revoking of his abolition," he added.
"Thus, today I decided to revoke the rest of the pardons, which I announced on April 12," Ivanov wrote in the statement.
Macedonia has been locked in a deepening crisis, which started in January 2015 when Zaev accused the coalition government of the conservative VMRO-DPMNE and ethnic-Albanian DUI of corruption, wiretapping illegally more than 20,000 people and covering-up a murder. For its part, the government charged Zaev with trying to destabilise the country.
In an attempt to break the political deadlock, the main political parties, with the mediation of the EU and the US, called early elections for April 24. The polls were later postponed for June 5 under pressure from the EU and the US, which insisted that Macedonia needed more time to meet the international community's requirements for organising credible elections.
However, VMRO DPMNE was the only party that registered candidates for the June 5 vote with the elections committee, while SDSM, DUI and DPA boycotted the elections.
On May 18, Macedonia's parliament cancelled the June 5 vote, without setting a new date.