Vanhoutte: If there is no agreement over SEC by November, elections in April are almost impossible

Belgian facilitator Peter Vanhoutte said today that if no agreements are made on the details of the functioning of the State Election Commission by the beginning of November, elections in April are almost impossible.
He says that now we now need to ask whether the political parties want to reach a full agreement, and according to him, there are obstructions on all sides.
The most progress these working groups have made, Vanhoutte points out, is that politicians have began to talk to each other. He made a comparison with his work in Macedonia a few years ago when working on the Inquiry Committee for the 24th of December and said politicians were not speaking to each other.
According to the Belgian facilitator he believes that the major problem is that MPs in Parliament do not ask tough questions but demand accountability and answers from representatives of the Government. According to him, the parliament and institutions in Macedonia are dysfunctional.
Van Houtte describes that the major problem is due to progress is blocked in negotiations on the law of “Bombs”. He says that when it comes to freedom of expression and freedom of the media, it is non-negotiable. He also says that there is a problem with what kind of responsibilities the new Ministers will have. One of the parties them to have only technical abilities. More problems before achieving progress is the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, which was to be formed at the beginning of September. VMRO-DPMNE does not want the committee to talk about the content of the wire tapped conversations, but only about the purchase of the equipment used.