Skopje, 15 August 2024 (MIA) — Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Thursday that some former government officials with millions of euros in their bank accounts were trying to manipulate people and stir ethnic tension in the country, adding that these agents provocateurs would be held accountable sooner or later.

"We have indications of elements with huge sums of money, in the millions, some of them high officials in former governments, who are trying to mobilize, manipulate people on the ground.

"What worries me in particular is that that they are trying to provoke an ethnic conflict, to destabilize the ethnic harmony in Macedonia," PM Mickoski said in response to a reporter's question on allegations that there were people working to destabilize the state.

"This is what worries me the most. They have realized that they can't mobilize people otherwise so now the only way is to provoke this kind of conflict," he said. 

"We will not allow that," he added, urging the media and members of the public to ignore any ethnic provocations. He also said perpetrators would be held accountable in due course.

"Macedonia needs to be consolidated," he continued, citing recent improvements in the Customs Administration and in the Public Revenue Office. 

"This means that the free fall is stopped. Now we need to slowly return the situation to a zero, so we can then begin developing our country. We are focused on that. We are not focused on reality shows," he said. 

"Soon the public will be informed about literally every move of this Government. We want to develop Macedonia the way it deserves to be developed," Mickoski said.

On holding responsible former officials rumored of wrongdoing, he said that the government would appoint new people to lead the state institutions by mid-September, "which means that in less than three months after the new Government was elected, that first round of transition should end and I expect from all those who will be part of those institutions to first stabilize the institutions and while stabilizing them, make a serious revision and analysis of what happened in the past," Mickoski said.

He said there were serious indications of illegal activities in many institutions so this was not political persecution.

"We do not want to leave any room for interpreting this as a political witch hunt. We don't want to take a step forward, then a step back, and then the public says, 'They made a deal, they are just like the others, they arrested him, they made a spectacle, and then in three days they released him'," Mickoski said.

"No, we don't want this. As you already saw, during the caretaker government, a Supreme Court judge and a Council of Public Prosecutors president were indicted and detained. Now we have their admission of guilt and a plea bargain, which means this action was supported by evidence. We don't want to create spectacles, theater like the previous government did," he said.

The prime minister stressed that the point was not to humiliate anyone but to uphold the rule of law and have the law apply to everyone equally. mr/