LOCAL POLITICAL GAMES

AIM Skopje, September 16, 1996

Macedonia will have 123 municipalities in the future. This was decided by members of parliament of this state who were in session for a whole day and night in order to adopt the Law on territory division of the country. "It is nonsense for a state the size of a single district in Istanbul to have 120 municipalities", says Ljubisa Georgievski in his Sunday column. And adds, "nonsense is invariable, and if it were for it, with the same explanation, we could have had 1200 municipalities just the same". Cynism of these words is not far from the truth, because the parliamentarians had more than 300 amendments to the offered draft law. Cynics also add that Macedonia has not more than 123 municipalities only thanks to the fact that the parliamentarians were tired and wished to go to bed: Chairman of the parliament had practically "locked" the members of the parliament in the building of the Assembly until the Law passed. And it had been known in advance that it would be adopted, in view of the composition of the parliament but also the fact that the ruling partners had "agreed" in advance what will be whose. This agreement discussed by the public, was marked by some as "sale of the state" (meaning consessions made to the Albanian political structures), "good imposture of the ruling Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM) in order to ensure its victory in the local elections", etc. In the end, local elections were scheduled for - November 17. This raised even further temperature among the local political public and a sign was given to parties to prepare their strategy for participation in minicipal elections.

Judging by what the political parties declare and by analyses in lobbies, possible coalitions are announced, but also the possibility that some of the parties which have no representatives in the parliament might boycott local elections. There is no doubt that these local elections are equally important for all parties which have any self-respect and which mean anything in political life of Macedonia. For a simple reason that these elections will show the current rating of political parties. That is why nobody doubts that they will use their entire political "arsenal" in order to prove their force. What is the most interesting thing for the public are possible coalitions and possiple boycott of the elections by some non-parliamentarian parties. When speaking of refusal to participate in the elections, everybody has the most powerful among them in their minds: VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Party which did not participate in the parliamentary elections either. Noone doubts that the SDSM (the most powerful partner in the present republican authorities) will do its best to win the local elections as well. Some believe that it would even reach out for various "manipulations" by means of which, as claimed by some, it had come to power. Such presumptions start from the fact that the SDSM had the biggest influence on "re-modelling " the country and establishment of new municipalities, and therefore, never failed to use every opportunity to "cut out" municipalities as it sees fit. Especially when the fact is added that opposition parties justify the possible boycott with the fact that the government did not take into account their complaints to the now already adopted Law on territory division.

That the Socialist Party will go along with the SDSM nobody doubts. There is also no doubt that division of the territory mostly populated by the Albanians was made according to the "wishes" of the ruling partner, the Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP) with the aim to help it avoid defeat in the local elections by "radicals" of Arben Xhaferi - the Party of Democratic Prosperity of the Albanians (PDPA) which experienced great rise of popularity after well known rallies concerning the Tetovo University. How efficient this "help" will be, it is too early to judge, but analysts claim that rating of the PDP has abruptly dropped and that in the headquarters of the PDPA they believe that these local elections will decide which party will acquire the attribute "all-Albanian" when speaking of Albanians who live in Macedonia. The additional element which is heating up the atmosphere in the "camp" of the Albanian parties is "reconciliation" between the PDP and the Democratic Party of Albania which was marked by a recent visit of Abdurrahman Aliti to Tirana. Some analysts tend to attribute this visit to the forthcoming elections too, of course, as assistance of the "parent" country to PDP.

When "international combinations" are excluded, most interesting for the analysts are forecasts how Macedonian opposition will act. This always implies two most powerful non-parliamentary parties - VMRO-DPMNE headed by Ljupce Georgievski and the Democratic Party with its leader Petar Gosev, and the Liberal Party of Stojan Andov which has been non-parliamentary for the past few months. Ljubisa Georgievski, presidential candidate in the last elections, in an analysis of the new situation, says: "Primarily, the opposition must decide whether it will respond with an active or passive election strategy, in other words whether it will cause a battle or avoid it", and adds that "active election strategy of the opposition hangs on a single tiny string: solid coalition without any reservations of VMRO-DPMNE, Democratic Party, Liberal Party and MAAK. Only such a super-powerful coalition can create an active and efficient pre-election strategy which can successful oppose the strategy of the SDSM". There is no doubbt that only such a coalition can be a serious counterpart to the ruling SDSM in local elections because it has already "done" a lot in order to be able to count on a certain victory in majority of municipalities. Media have been put under full control of this party a long time ago. It is believed that local power-wielders of the economy are also from this party. Rumours claim that members of the SDSM have already "circled" municipalities where they "must" win, and they are mostly urban and economically powerful municipalities, such as Skoplje, Bitolj, Ohrid, etc.

Analysts assess that at the moment the most important thing is who the Liberal Party will decide to back, if it decides to back anyone at all. A lot of things speak in favour of the fact that this party is increasingly inclining to the right wing of the non-parliamentary opposition. The fact that a parliamentarian from this party joined the SDSM claiming that he was doing it because his party (LS) was turning towards non-parliamentary opposition. Even the leader of the Liberals hinmself, Stojan Andov, has been increasingly critising his former partners. Even with the allegation that "there have been manipulations in the last elections". He is the only one who knows why he is stating this truth now. But, this statement of his serves as an argument to those who already doubt correctness and righteness of the forthcoming local elections.

Therefore, every second village in Macedonia has become a municipality. This means that there will be many mayors who could much more adequately be called "village headmen". The population of two million has been divided into 123 municipalities in order to enjoy "more democracy". And while some people consider this division to be pure nonsense, the others lament for not having used the opportunity to acquire the status of a municipality. Who will be sorry the most, time will show. If nothing else, such division will enable political parties to satisfy appetites of local careerists and maybe rule more easily "their own". This shows that the slogan "Divide et impera" has lost nothing of its topicality.

KIM MEHMETI