SDSM leader Zoran Zaev
After Sunday's anti-government rally, thousands of opposition activists will camp out in front of the government HQ in Skopje until Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski resigns, the opposition said.
Opposition Social Democrats, SDSM leader Zoran Zaev told a press conference on Friday that after the planned mass rally, a non-stop sit-in protest will maintain the pressure on Gruevski and his government.
"Some 4,600 activists have decided
on their own initiative to sleep out in front of the government building and to continue the protest. Knowing that we are not the only organizers of this protest, we have decided that we will remain until the end, until Gruevski resigns," he said.
Zaev said his party was doing all it could to ensure a peaceful protest on Sunday and foil any attempts to provoke violence and incriminate the opposition."All SDSM members
have got instructions to record every possible violent act. Let us open our eyes so that no one can frame us," Zaev said.
Tens of thousands of people - not just SDSM supporters, but also supporters of other smaller parties, both Macedonian and Albanian, as well as human rights activists, workers' unions, and students', professors' and teachers' movements -
are expected to attend the rally on Sunday.
At Friday's press conference, the opposition released the latest in a series of wiretapped conversations allegedly between government officials which have sparked a mass surveillance scandal in the country and highlighted claims of corruption and other serious wrongdoing within Gruevski's administration.
The new tapes, the opposition claimed,
illustrate the brutality and malice of senior state officials as well as their hatred towards the country's large Albanian minority.The tapes involve the
alleged voices of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, outgoing Transportation Minister Mile Janakieski, outgoing interior minister Gordana Jankulovska, the PM's chief of staff Martin Protugjer, outgoing secret police chief Saso Mijalkov and police spokesperson Ivo Kotevski.
In one tape, the voices of Mijalkov and Jankuloska are
allegedly heard plotting how to retaliate against a police officer who came out to protest against the arrest of rightist opposition leader Ljube Boskoski.
"Let's sack him," Jankuloska
appears to suggest. "We should put him in the worst possible place," Mijalkov says.
In another tape, what is
alleged to be the voice of the Prime Minister is heard instructing Transport Minister Janakieski to prepare to tear down a small park in central Skopje so that a new building, part of Gruevski's grand makeover plan of the capital dubbed 'Skopje 2014', can be erected.
After Janakieski warns that local residents may complain, Gruevski instructs him to check whether they are ruling party voters or not. "If they are 'commies' [a derogatory word for the opposition members], fuck them," Gruevski says.
Comment: Foreign Policy update: Syria War: