The Parliament rejected Wednesday the interpellation against Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska-Mileska with 16 votes in favor and 60 votes against.

With broomsticks in their hands, the MPs of SDSM demanded of Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska Wednesday to resign providing arguments regarding the interpellation motion against her filed after the affair “Patriotic Broomstick” in which documents about 14 tenders of the project Skopje 2014 disappeared. Kanceska-Milevska is also accused of being paid unlawfully royalties of over 2,000 euros while she filled the office of state secretary at the Ministry of Culture.

“Everybody should clean their own backyard first,” said Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski in regard to SDSM’s demand.

MP Amdi Bajram said the MPs of SDSM wanted to take the job of the Roma people considering that most of them worked as cleaners.

“Had we been a normal democratic country, Kanceska-Milevska would have either resigned of her own will or would have been dismissed by the prime minister for such a mega-affair. This is an enormous scandal because tender documents were deliberately destroyed and direct deals were then concluded. The amount of money paid for the Museum of VMRO-DPMNE, the old theater in Skopje and the theater in Veles totaled record 25 million euros,” SDSM MP Igor Ivanovski said.

Minister Kanceska-Milevska rejected the attacks and accusations as untrue and unsubstantiated.

“The relevant authorities at the Interior Ministry said only a part of the documents of the aforementioned 14 cases was missing. The Interior Ministry confirmed that there were no financial implications of losing those documents and that there was neither an order nor a decision for those documents to be destroyed,” Minister Kanceska-MIlevska said.

The MPs of the governing majority disagreed with the accusations. In their view, the ministry is working hard and the institution Kanceska-Milevska is in charge of is to be credited for the culture promotion and preservation of cultural heritage.