Skopje, 26 June 2025 (MIA) — Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Thursday at a parliamentary Q & A session that the state could conduct an electronic census as early as next year if a single constituency electoral model were adopted "immediately."

Mickoski said this in response to a question by MP Halil Snopce from the Alliance of Albanians party. 

Snopce had asked whether the government intended to change its decision on the number of local councilors after the Constitutional Court repealed the 2021 census methodology provision that had categorized the population into resident and non-resident. 

This classification, Snopce said, had resulted in the government's reducing the number of local councillors, which he said was unfounded.

In response, PM Mickoski pointed to vast differences in population numbers between the last two censuses. Citing the example of Gostivar, where MP Snopce is from, Mickoski said the number of residents had dropped from 85,000 to 59,000 residents.

"I often say our diaspora is an inseparable part of the unitary character of Macedonia as a state, so I am asking your political party to support a single constituency electoral model through which you will make it possible for the diaspora to vote," Mickoski said.

Were this to happen, he said, an e-census could be conducted in 2026 with funding from the national budget.

Earlier Thursday, the Constitutional Court said in a press release it had repealed provisions of the 2021 Census Methodology related to the classification of “resident” and “non-resident” population, finding the classification was not in line with the country's constitutional order. The court also found that the head of the State Statistical Office had overstepped his authority by introducing such a classification through a bylaw, without having the legal mandate to do so. 

The decision will not apply retroactively to the 2021 census. It will come into effect after it is published in the Official Gazette. mr/