Skopje, 7 September 2022 (MIA) – VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski submitted an initiative for a Referendum to the State Election Commission (SEC) on Wednesday. Mickoski expects one hundred signatures to be collected today in the regional offices of the SEC so that it can be delivered to the Parliament after the national holiday. He, as he said, will be among the first signatories in the regional office of the SEC in Karpos, as well as MPs from VMRO-DPMNE and the coalition. Mickoski repeated the redefined referendum question from yesterday: “Are you in favor of abandoning the validity of the Law on Ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria published in the Official Gazette No: 12 /2018 on January 18, 2018?” If the referendum takes place, he added, the citizens will have the opportunity to say "in favor", thus ending the validity of this agreement with Bulgaria, or "against", keeping this agreement with the Republic of Bulgaria valid. He called on the citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, to support the referendum. “I use this opportunity to call upon all political parties, citizens regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of whether they support one or another political option or are undecided, I use this opportunity to call all social stakeholders, non-governmental organizations, all individuals to unite in one social all-Macedonian union and to stand against the main problem of our European integration, and that is the Treaty that the Republic of Macedonia has signed with the Republic of Bulgaria, and therefore, when this referendum happens, come out en masse and vote 'in favor' of the termination of the validity of the Law by which this Treaty was ratified within the framework of the Parliament,” Mickoski said. The leader of the opposition party, answering a journalist's question about possible obstructions, said that they are to be expected considering, as he stated, "the nature of the hybrid regime, which at the moment is a thin parliamentary majority". Mickoski commented on the statement of the President Stevo Pendarovski in which he says that this referendum would actually end the negotiations with the EU, pointing out that he often does "political gymnastics in his own statements" and that he shows day by day that he is not worthy to serve as president. “If you’ll recall, the same Stevo Pendarovski even suggested a referendum question, and in one of his statements, he said that it was a legitimate act, if I'm not mistaken. Then he withdrew from all that so that today he could be the biggest opponent of the referendum. If he wants to be the president of all citizens, he will have to respect the will of the citizens who vote for the opposition and who have a different opinion from the government. I really regret that day by day Stevo Pendarovski confirms that he is not worthy to perform his role as the president of all citizens and I regret that this man will have more opportunities to be where he is,” said the leader of VMRO-DPMNE. According to him, holding the referendum is an excellent opportunity to organize early parliamentary elections simultaneously. “I call on the government, the parliamentary majority to show democratic character, to be brave and to confirm their policies in early parliamentary elections that would take place together with the referendum,” Mickoski said. When asked about VMRO-DPMNE’s plan for the referendum, he explained that a minimum of 100 qualified citizens' signatures should be collected today and that this citizens' initiative should be submitted to the Parliament Speaker on Friday through the SEC. “After that, the next step is for him to immediately submit them to two parliamentary commissions, namely the Committee for Political System and the Legislative Committee, which will decide whether the civil initiative is proper or not,” Mickoski said. Once again, he emphasized that a difficult autumn lies ahead, and an even more difficult winter. Already, as he said, there is panic among the citizens. “If this arrogant government does not come to its senses and if it does not sit down and propose real measures, then we really expect cataclysmic results this fall and even more cataclysmic results this winter,” Mickoski said. dk/ba/