Election Coalitions in Macedonia

ELECTORAL CHAOS

AIM Skopje, September 5, 1998

According to still unconfirmed reports a rally of the strongest opposition party VMRO-DPMNE (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) and the youngest Macedonian party

• the Democratic Alternative (DA), will be organized at the Skopje fortress at the end of this weekend, on Sunday. It is expected that the agreement on coalition of these two parties at the forthcoming, third in a row, parliamentary elections will be announced on that occasion. This will be a finale of negotiations conducted by Ljupco Georgievski and Vasil Tupurkovski, leaders of the two parties, and for the time being the only successful conclusion of negotiations on joint participation at the forthcoming parliamentary elections. It is assumed that this coalition will be the strongest partner in the struggle for power against the current ruling Social-Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM).

On the one hand the VMRO-DPMNE's rating has been demonstrated at all hitherto elections, either local - at which this party won a high percentage of votes (at the first parliamentary elections it was practically the winner with almost one third of seats in Parliament, while at others it never scored less than 20 percent). On the other hand, Vasil Tupurkovski who has created DA, was always popular in Macedonia, even at the times of the old regime. Let us remind that he was the last representative of Macedonia in the last SFRY Presidency and despite their political differences, quite a lot of people here think that he will be the future president of Macedonia (presidential elections are scheduled for next year, and Kiro Gligorov has reiterated that he had no intention of running for re-election).

In mid October, more precisely on October 19, 1998, the first round of the third multi-party parliamentary elections will be held in the Republic of Macedonia. It seems that the main topic on the eve of the elections is whether the present authorities will manage to picture the opposition as marginal, negative and "harmful" to the state in order to remain in power for the third time or there will be finally a change of power. This impression is mostly gained from almost hysterical intonation with which the state controlled media describe this election campaign. Almost every day issues of "Nova Makedonija" carry an article and Radio Television of Macedonia broadcast programmes satanizing everyone who might threaten the ruling coalition.

They range from the "classical" ones according to which if it wins the elections in Macedonia the VMRO-DPMNE will be the one to "sell" Macedonia overnight - unite it with Bulgaria, to dirty stories exposing the life and work of Vasil Tupurkovski on the Macedonian political scene or direct accusations against the Albanian political parties which will most certainly form election coalitions and thus erase the difference between the "moderate" Albanians, which are in the coalition government (Party for Democratic Prosperity - PDP), and the "extreme" ones (Democratic Party of the Albanians - DPA) united in the Party for Democratic Prosperity of the Albanians (PDPA) and the National Democratic Party (NDPA) (whose amalgamation into one new party has not yet been approved by the court).

In the meantime opposition parties have dedicated much time to mutual contacts aimed at establishing election coalitions and trying to discover which parties will form a coalition and which combination might "win the power". Many options were mentioned, but very few came through in the end. Everything started with a TV interview in which Stojan Andov, President of the Liberal Democratic Party's Council (LDP) - incidentally the President of the first and second Macedonian pluralistic Parliament whom the SDSM threw out from the electoral coalition called "Alliance for Macedonia" during 1994 parliamentary elections - announced the forming of a coalition between his party and the VMRO-DPMNE which could easily win seventy seats in Parliament, enough to form a new government.

The stumbling block in subsequent talks and negotiations was the distribution of places on the list of candidates. As the VMRO-DPMNE thought its rating to be higher than that of the LDP it demanded the 65 to 35 ratio of candidates, while Liberal Democrats insisted on 50:50. The agreement was not reached so that the LDP concluded a coalition agreement with a marginal Democratic Party of Macedonia, which is actually a party similar by form to the organisation of Serbs in Kosovo from the early eighties and later, as it declares itself the protector of Macedonian national interest in communities "endangered" by the Albanians in West Macedonia.

Some other smaller parties also managed to agree on election coalitions: the League for Democracy got one nomination for its President as a present from the VMRO-DPMNE for joining forces with it, while some parties of the national minorities concluded an electoral alliance under somewhat utopian title for the present times: "Movement for Cultural and Civil Cooperation" whose proportional list (based on new legal regulations 85 deputies to the Parliament are elected according to the majority principle and 35 according to proportional system) includes the famous and well-known Ferid Muhic. Assuming the leading role in the Movement, Muhic concluded a coalition agreement with the Socialist Party and its leader Ljubosav Ivanov - Zinga, which belongs to the ruling coalition, but which two years ago turned its back on its partners and won over an enviable number of voters. This time his party and the ruling SDSM did not manage to find a common language and will not be participating in the parliamentary elections as a coalition.

Nevertheless, the VMRO-DPMNE and DA coalition is the greatest step forward towards the desired change of power. If for no other reason then for the democratic health of the state. For, the authorities which have ruled so indolently during the past eight years did so many things on account of which they deserve to disappear from the political scene. That is why the differences in party programmes were practically avoided in talks about possible coalitions with the aim of uniting forces in order to bring about change. That is how the Macedonian "extreme" nationalists, or the Macedonian party of the right, which the VMRO-DPMNE is said to be, joined forces with the DA, which is "left from the centre".

The "electoral mathematics" which includes 120 seats in Parliament, which is soon to be renovated, shows that the most safe way to the new Parliament would be via the Albanian political parties. According to estimates, if the PDP and DPA decide to run alone at the forthcoming elections (both on the proportionate list and in the majority system) they will be able to win 16 to 17 seats in Parliament. On the other hand, if they run together, they can realistically expect to win 22-23 seats with these two lists. In the first case, votes would be split between the two which would benefit others - "the second Macedonian" party. The first logical reaction would be that there is no use in cutting one's own throat. The second, no matter how absurd it might seem, is that these two parties have a number of important points on which they agree despite the fact that one is in power (PDP) and the other in the opposition (DPA).

"Moderate" and "radical" Albanians agree that these points include: university education in the Albanian language, use of the Albanian as the official language, proportional Albanian participation in state authorities, the question of cultural (Albanian) institutions, etc. And that in itself is the problem for the Macedonian side. With twenty two to twenty three certain seats in Parliament, the Albanian election coalition will decisively, as the West calls it, "tip the scales". As things stand now, because of the joint platform (political objectives on which they agree) this coalition will be a choke-pear for Macedonian parties which could easily be left without a sufficient number of seats in Parliament entitling them to initiate the formation of (a new) government coalition.

Sure of their electoral results, the Albanian parties are relaxed - they will finally have to carry out what they had promised and agreed on. For them the ruling SDSM (with which the PDP had long negotiations regarding indisputable Albanian requests so that it doesn't have to be "acquainted" with the problem) is more preferable. On the other hand, the SDSM will hardly be in a position to accept such demands because it would be considered a traitor of the "Macedonian cause" and defeatist.

And to be considered the only representative of the Macedonian cause is much more important to the SDSM than to the "extremist" VMRO-DPMNE. Consequently, the SDSM as a typically reformed (communist) party of the left is more to the right than everything representatives of a typical conglomerate of Macedonian (national) parties stand for. On the other hand, at least regarding the statements of the VMRO-DPMNE leaders, the opposition sees Albanians in the new authorities at the civil level, mostly through DA's participation in the election coalition (in West Macedonia candidates are Albanian members of the DA). And that will be very hard to achieve as the only winning combination is the PDP-DPA coalition.

Ever since multi-party system has become a reality in Macedonia the most successful and (always) winning combination was the party with the sign of Stojan Andov's "image and work". This extremely skillful four-flusher always knew how to make something out of nothing. That in itself makes him a successful politician. It seems that he - unless he manages to cheat someone else from the rival parties - will be the biggest loser in the October-November elections: he will finally have to step down from the political scene on which he always got much more than the parties he represented. From the Alliance of Reformist Forces of Macedonia (under the patronage of Ante Markovic), through the Liberal Party (which also had an intermediate stage: Reformist Alliance - Liberal Party) to the Alliance for Macedonia. But, the election campaign is to begin on September 9, a day after the latest Macedonian holiday - the Independence Day - and bearing in mind the local political circumstances - everything is literally possible: for everything said above to be no longer be true tomorrow.

AIM Skopje

ISO RUSI