Opposition Social Democrats leader, Zoran Zaev | Photo by: AP / Boris Grdanoski

Releasing the latest wiretapped tapes of official conversations on Wednesday, opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev said the new batch of recordings prove the ruling VMRO DPMNE collected rackets from firms that had previously been awarded profitable tenders.

The government’s secretary general, Kiril Bozinoski, and the former head of the state power production company ELEM, Vlatko Cingovski, appeared to be in the centre of the scheme, according to the presented tapes.

In one batch of tapes, voices allegedly belonging to the two men talk about fixing a 20-million-euro tender in 2011 for the excavation of coal from the Suvodol site for the electricity plant in Bitola.

The two use codenames for the businessmen as they mull awarding lucrative contracts to firms close to the authorities and how to share the profits so that no one is left out.

“But who guarantees that someone will not apply with a better offer than all the rest? Then all four of them will lose and we will be in trouble,” Cingovski says.

Previously, the opposition aired tape in which the Prime Minister appeared to instruct Cingovski about which big firms should be instructed to form a consortium for the tender.

Another batch of tapes, according to the opposition, reveals how money awarded to firms on fixed tenders was later extracted in the form of cash for the party.

“It is logical to assume that the goal was for that enormous amount of cash to end up in the account of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party,” Zaev told the press conference.

Cingovski appears to play the role of collector and later transfers the cash to Bozinoski who takes it to the VMRO DPMNE party’s HQ.

Zaev “Bribe” Video Appears on Youtube Alongside opposition’s new releases a youtube video from an unknown source was presented by pro- government media on Wednesday featuring a spy camera footage of Zoran Zaev discussing what seems to be financial matters with an unknown person. The ruling VMRO DPMNE party said that the video shows Zaev soliciting a bribe of 200.000 euro for the privatization of a construction land back in his hometown of Strumica where he is a mayor and urged him to resign. “We have never seen a bigger scandal in the last 25 years of democracy” VMRO DPMNE media centre chief Ilija Dimovski told a press conference. In his reaction Zaev said that the leaked video’s source was either the police or the prosecution and asked that the footage is played in its totality so that people can see that he is in fact talking about a church donation, and not a bribe.



On March 10, while Zaev was speaking at an event in Skopje where more tapes of alleged election fraud were released, the Interior Ministry held a press conference and declared that he was suspected of soliciting a 200,000-euro bribe. Zaev insists this is a police set up and that the video was taken as part of that set up in which the police tried to plant a local businessman to give him money and then make a spectacular arrest, like it did in the case of another opposition politician, Ljube Boskoski. In January Zaev was also charged for “blackmail and and violence against top state officials” after the Prime Minister accused him of blackmailing him. In April while he aired tapes allegedly showing now resigned secret police shief Saso Mijalkov soliciting a bribe, he was charged with revealing state secrets.

The opposition said that during talks they always used codes, saying “little documents”, “papers” or “copies”, when talking about money.

“I have some documents that I need to bring to you,” Cingoski’s voice says in one tape. “Are they with you at the moment?” Bozinoski asks. “Why don’t you bring them right now, I am heading towards the party anyway,” he adds.

In another tape, Cingoski allegedly instructs Bozinovski on how to seek a donation from a businessmen in return for a favour. “Do not tire yourself with little figures,” Cingovski tells Bozinoski – who asks, “how many documents, how many copies” he should ask for – and gets the reply, “100 to 150 minimum”.

In one tape, the outgoing Transportation Minister, Mile Janakieski, and the Interior Minister, Gordana Jankuloska, who both resigned on Tuesday, talk about how the government got big private companies to pay for air flights carrying VMRO DPMNE voters who were to arrive from the diaspora to vote for the party.

Tapes were also played including the voice of Kiril Bozinoski and the chief editor of Sitel TV, Dragan Pavlovic, which the opposition claimed show how private companies during elections were pressured to use fictive receipts to pay for ruling party political adverts in the media.

The opposition also played a tape that they say proves an affair that they revealed back in April 2014, when they accused the VMRO DPMNE party of using questionable funds to buy up a large amount of real estate ahead of that year’s presidential and early general elections.

The opposition then presented documents from the land registry that it said show the ruling party purchased over 20 apartments, office spaces and building lots worth some €1.6 million in just three months. The ruling party has never given any specific answers to questions about the affair or clarified the origin of the money.

In a freshly played tape, Kiril Bozinoski instructs Minister Mile Janakieski to keep the planned purchases secret.

“If word of this gets out it will be very catastrophic. We should not tell. The goal is to buy as much as we can,” Bozinovski says.

Another aired batch of tapes between Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Jankuloska and his cousin, the now resigned secret police chief, Saso Mijalkov, reveals a new affair involving the covert purchase of a Mercedes for the PM almost 600,000 euro.

“Until the local elections, we will pretend that it is for MVR [Interior Ministry] purposes… and I will use it only for destinations where there are no journalists meeting me,” Gruevski appears to tell Jankuloska. Gruevski only uses the letter “M” when talking about the Mercedes.

Another conversation between Jankuloska and Mijalkov reveals the exact price for the fully equipped car, 575,000 euro. “It’s a fantasy, I have never seen anything similar,” Jankuloska tells Mijalkov, adding that they had hidden it from the public in the Prime Minister’s garage.

In the last tape, intended to show Gruevski’s manipulative nature, the voice of the Prime Minister is heard giving specific instructions to Janakieski that 15 newly purchased buses should circle in a line around the city centre “for half a day” so that “the crowd can see them”.

More tapes were also played that according to the opposition show how top officials of the VMRO DPMNE and its junior partner, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, also helped each other to protect lucrative businesses.

In its reaction, Gruevski’s ruling VMRO DPMNE party denounced all criminal allegations saying that the tapes that Zaev played cannot prove a single crime.

The ruling party accused Zaev of “manipulation” saying that he presented the tapes “in a completely wrong context that suits only Zaev’s interests”.

The party claims that the luxurious car that Gruevski is heard talking about belongs to the Interior Ministry and that its armor, suited for transport of VIPs justified its hefty price. It also said that the planes mentioned in the tapes were to transport sports fans to the European basketball championship and not ruling party voters from the Diaspora for the elections.

“There is no racketeering, no fixing of tenders. Zoran Zaev is aware of this and that is why he openly manipulates” the ruling party reaction says.

The Social Democrats started releasing secretly recorded tapes of official conversations in February. It claims they show Prime Minister Gruevski orchestrated the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people, adding that the material comes from sources in the Macedonian secret services.

Gruevski has insisted that the tapes were created by unnamed “foreign secret services” in collaboration with the opposition in order to destabilise the country.

Although Jankuloska, Janakieski and Mijalkov resigned on Tuesday, the opposition says it will not return to parliament until the entire government resigns.