RACE WITHOUT FAVOURITES

Political Parties in Local elections

AIM Skopje, 29 October, 1996

The main battle for winning local power in the Macedonian political camp is expected to take place between the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM) on one, and all the others on the other side, but at least for the time being, they have equal chances.

Exactly a month before the long-expected local elections in Macedonia, on 18 October, the beginning of election campaign was officially announced. Officially, because the SDSM has actually begun its campaign much before this date, although majority of parties have not set out in the actual "battle" even several days after the beginning of the campaign. At the very official beginning, Liberals of Stojan Andov have proved to be the most ambitious. This party has literally "occupied" almost all available space planned for posters, especially in the capital city of Skopje, which is expected to be the scene of main action for winning power in local - municipal and city authorities. Such boasting with expensive colourful posters is not a great surprise when one knows that this party is known as the party of managers, in other words as the party of large entrepreneurs.

Local elections, second in a row in the pluralist ambience, are two years too late, and the main reason for this is the delay in passing laws which refer to the so-called "forth power". The greatest novelty in the election procedure is that mayors will be elected pursuant the majority system, while municipal deputies will be elected pursuant the proportional principle. As it could be expected, the decisive battle will be fought for the post of the first men in units of local self-administration. Based on the new law on territorial division of Macedonia, it is divided into 123 municupalities plus Skopje, which means that the electoral struggle will be widespread but also uneven. An illustration for this allegation may be the fact that some minicipalities have less than 500 inhabitants, while the greatest have over 100 thousand inhabitants. It should be stressed that out of the total number of municipalities, 26 of them have Albanian absolute majority population, which, based on experience, means that the main battle in them will be fought among Albanian political parties, while over 80 municipalities will be the target for the Macedonian political parties.

This, conditionally speaking, Macedonian part of the local elections due to a series of circumstances which accompany the Macedonian political scene after the latest parliamentary elections, is expected to be exceptionally interesting. Primarily because of the fact that in 1994 parliamentary elections accounts have not been completely settled between the left and the right block of the Macedonian political corpus. Local elections are a long wished for opportunity for the VMRO-DPMNE as the greatest opposition party and the Democratic Party (DP) of Petar Gosev, who boycotted the second round of parliamentary elections (at the same time presidential elections, too), to prove their allegation that the "people support them". This opportunity is all the more significant because the current authorities constituted by the SDSM and its much smaller (by the number of deputies in the parliament) coalition partners ignored their action in collecting 150 thousand signatures for scheduling a referendum in which citizens would state their view concerning early elections. The so-called "non-parliamentary opposition" was in March joined by the powerful (primarily in the economic sense) Liberal Party of Stojan Andov which turned out to be in the opposition after reconstruction of the Government in the period which followed the attempt on President Gligorov's life. The Liberals challenged to an election duel their recent allies, the Social Democrats, with no less vehemence than their former opponents, in order to find out who was the "most legitimate" representative of people's will.

Since the Social Democrats resisted these attacks thanks to their control of all democratic instruments, local elections were identified as a possibility of indirect "squaring of accounts". The question which is now posed by the public is the following: will the Social Democrats, if they lose local elections, schedule early parliamentary elections? As a moral issue. Of course, one should be patient and wait for the reply until the end of next month, while the priority issue for the voters is at present: who will win in the elections?

According to statements of the officials, for the most important office - that of mayors' - about one thousand candidates are running, both of different parties and independent ones, while the number of those running for municipal deputies is by far much larger. It is self-understood that the greatest interest of political parties refers to winning in Skopje, which is a separate unit of local self-administration where one third of the total population of Macedonia is concentrated. For the post of the mayor of Skopje, 18 candidates will match themselves against each other, and 22 political parties will compete for the city council. Struggle for Skopje will be especially interesting due also to the fact that in the past six years, power in it was held by VMRO-DPMNE (which shared it with the Liberals who were until recently in a coalition with the Social Democrats on the parliamentary level).

It is also interesting that the non-parliamentary opposition (VMRO-DPMNE and the DP) decided to run together, while negotiations with the until recently power-holders - the Liberals - who are also said to have as of lately come to their senses, gone to the dogs. The main struggle will, therefore, be fought between the SDSM (i.e. the left) and the united opposition VMRO-DPMNE and DP (combination of the right and the centre) and the Liberal Party. Similar relation of forces is expected in the struggle for Skopje, but also in the struggle for winning power in other municipalities, although in some there may be deviations from the main trend in relation of forces. Although the ruling SDSM was the first to present its election slogans, such as the one on opening new jobs (which can be assessed as very good tactics in view of the fact that unemployment has reached 30 per cent), it seems that its ambitions are too high. This especially because its faithful silent partner, the Socialist Party, in a way disassociated itself from it and decided to run alone in the elections. This can also be interpreted as a sign of fear of this party not to be attacked by the united opposition, primarily of the coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and the DP, and the economically powerful LP. Recent "defection" of two deputies from the LP to SDSM without doubt contributed to self-satisfaction of the latter, since now it has exactly 51 per cent of the total number of deputies in the Macedonian parliament (61 out of the total of 120 deputies).

On the other hand, however, general social erosion expressed through high unemployment and traditional loyalty to the party VMRO-DPMNE which cherishes romantic feelings among Macedonian masses using the syndrome of "Albanian threat" as the main trump card in its political platform, even if it were just local elections, creates the impression that one cannot speak of a special favourite in the forthcoming elections. Especially since members of the VMRO-DPMNE were joined by the Democrats and indirectly by the Liberals, who pulled a civil attire on the mentioned romantic spirit, which may be attractive for the voters, especially for a part of the electorate which is not satisfied with the "national" and even more the economic policy of the SDSM.

IBRAHIM MEHMETI