Macedonia, leading even to a boycott of the census by the Albanian community in 1994. The last census organised in the territory of Macedonia and not contested by the ethnic communities of the country is the last one held in 2002. III.3.a. 1991 census From 1-15 April 1991, under conditions of impending political disintegration, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia conducted its last census. Before the end of that year, while the census data were still being processed, war had broken out in Former Yugoslavia and Macedonia had subsequently declared independence. The census itself was carried out in an atmosphere of distrust and animosity. Albanians in Macedonia boycotted the 1991 census, claiming that they would be purposefully undercounted (Friedman). The State Statistical Office estimated the data for Albanians in the boycotted cities by means of statistical projections utilizing the data from the 1981 census, natural growth of the population during the inter-census period, migration, and other statistical data. The preliminary results were published in November 1991. Table 14 in Annex gives comparative statistics for all the postWar censuses conducted on the territory of Macedonia. Before the preliminary figures for the 1991 census were published, there appeared wide perception that Albanians have been miscounted in this census (Friedman). Establishment of independent Macedonia and the absence of a non-contested source for the characteristics of its population, particularly on its ethnic composition, necessitated holding a new census that will not be contested by the ethnic communities (Sardon, 2000). This led to organisation of extraordinary census in 1994. III.3.b. 1994 census In 1994 (from 21 June - mid-July), subject to intense external political pressure, an extraordinary census took place in Macedonia. Holding of 1994 consensus came as a result of dissatisfaction with the 1991 census. The extraordinary census of 1994 provided an opportunity to view more broadly the complexity of the Macedonian scene. Questions of ethnic identity, citizenship, language rights, and the interrelationships of the concepts of language, religion, and "nationality" have been hotly contested in Macedonia. The 1994 census was therefore a clearly political event rather than the statistical exercise it was officially claimed to be. And this was not the first time that Macedonian census figures were subject of conflicting claims. The 1994 census announcement was followed by nineteen months of uninterrupted dispute. There was an intense debate over the wording of the census law, which was eventually passed with the support of the Albanian members of parliament. One of the chief issues was language use in the census, and the new census law provided for bilingual forms in Albanian, Turkish, Roma, Vlach, and Serbian in addition to Macedonian (Friedman). The chief problem was that the Ministry of Interior had not succeeded in distributing all citizenship documents by the time the census began particularly to Albanians. Although the problems of document distribution occurred throughout Macedonia, Albanians maintained that a disproportionately high number of qualified Albanians were without citizenship documents. Albanian politicians were expressing particular misgiving over the issue of citizenship and they claimed that the question about citizenship was designed to demonstrate that the majority of Albanians in Macedonia were 'immigrants' (Friedman).
35