Council to form committees for selection of new head of the Basic Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Corruption
Council to set up committees and advance the procedure that will culminate with a vote on 28 October 2026.
The Council of Public Prosecutors will meet today to establish the committees that will run the selection process for a new head of the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office for Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption.
Committees to prepare candidate lists and to select the new chief
On the agenda for the Council's 50th session is the formation of two bodies: a Committee to prepare candidate lists and a Committee to conduct the final selection of the basic public prosecutor for the Office for Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption.
Five public prosecutors have applied so far to lead the office. Council president Bashkim Besimi confirmed that the candidates are Jove Cvetanovski (senior public prosecutor), Trajche Pelivanov (prosecutor at the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office and former prosecutor in the Special Public Prosecution), Lidija Raichevic (prosecutor at the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje), and two current prosecutors from the Organized Crime and Corruption Office, Iskra Hadzhi-Vasileva and Faton Azizi.
The advertisement for the post was published under the Law on the Council of Public Prosecutors and the Law on the Public Prosecution. By those rules, only public prosecutors with at least six years of uninterrupted service in the prosecutorial function by the application deadline and with positive evaluations during the last three years are eligible to apply.
The vote to appoint the new basic public prosecutor for the Office for Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption is scheduled for 28 October 2026. The procedure is being carried out because the mandate of the current head, Islam Abazi, has expired; he was originally chosen for the post in October 2022.
Photo: press material from the event
