Daniel Kajmakoski was chosen to represent Macedonia in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, but the entire selection process is put into question, because the Macedonian police called in three people for questioning on alleged accusations of manipulating with the SMS voting at Skopje Fest last Wednesday.

According to the Skopje media, four persons have been suspected to be involved in the manipulation with the votes, of which an owner of a production company, a producer, a song writer, and the director of the company which organised the televoting process for Skopje Fest. The fourth person suspected to be involved in the scandal is apparently already out of the country, and did not show up for questioning.

The group is accused of rigging the results for the first three places which were awarded a total sum of EUR 45.000, provided by the Macedonian Ministry of Culture.

The winner of the contest, Daniel Kajmakoski, who is also the winner of the regional X Factor, said that he had heard about the fraudulent activity from the media and that he has nothing to do with it.

The four persons accused have already been charged with “criminal association” and “computer fraud”, and are also suspected to have involved a larger group of people who were engaged in manipulating with the televoting system. These people were supposedly given SIM cards at two different locations in Skopje, which they used during the voting process.

Due to early reports about alleged rigging of the voting results immediately after Skopje Fest, the Macedonian police raided the two suspected locations and found 14 people with a large number of handsets and approximately 2500 SIM cards, from which they coordinated the sending of the SMS votes.