(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Ljupco Andonovski has been made the new chief of Macdonia's intelligence service, after his predecessor, Saso Mijalkov, resigned two weeks ago over the illegal surveillance scandal.
Andonovski was appointed the new head of Macedonia's intelligence agency, the UBK, on Tuesday at a government session.
He was the former head of the Skopje branch of the secret police. His resume says he has worked in the police since 1987.
The appointment comes two weeks after Saso Mijalkov, a cousin to Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who has run the UBK since 2006, resigned together with Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska and Transportation Minister Mile Janakieski.
All three were casualties of the country's surveillance scandal.
While Jankuloska and Janakieski were replaced within only a day, Mijalkov's seat remained empty for over two weeks.
The resignations of the three key figures came against a backdrop of deep political crisis revolving around opposition claims that Gruevski and Mijalkov ordered the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people, including government ministers.
Since February, the opposition has released batched of taped conversations of officials that appear to show that the government has been involved in electoral fraud, abuse of the justice system - and covered up for the murder of a young man by a police officer among other things.
Mijalkov, seen as the second most powerful man in Gruevski's team, was among those most heavily implicated in the surveillance scandal. In many of the most incriminating tapes, Mijalkov appeared to be the main interlocutor.
In one of the tapes, what appears to be Mijalkov's voice could be heard soliciting a bribe to smooth the procurement of Israeli surveillance equipment in 2011.
Other tapes also showed Mijalkov interfering in the judiciary, fixing the appointments of judges and rulings, interfering in the editorial politics of the media as well as arranging the arrests of political opponents.
The tapes also suggested that he is the covert owner of a private security agency, Security Group Services, SGS that has contracts with many of the largest Macedonian firms.
Gruevski, who insists that the tapes were created by unnamed "foreign secret services" in collaboration with the opposition in order to destabilise the country defended Mijalkov after his resignation.
He said that Mijalkov would not retire completely from public life and would continue activities within the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party.
Last week, Mijalkov joined Gruevski's delegation to Strasbourg that attended EU-mediated talks with the Macedonian opposition aimed at resolving the political crisis.
The three resignations have meanwhile failed to calm the political turmoil in Macedonia, where both the opposition and a coalition of human rights activists and civil organizations seek the resignation of Gruevski himself.
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