Political Parties in Macedonia

What is the Right, What Is the Left?

AIM Skopje, 4 June, 1999

Leader of the ruling party in Macedonia, VMRO-DPMNE, Ljubco Georgievski, at the 11th convention of the party (in fact, the third after its foundation in 1989, not counting conventions of VMRO - the party founded in the end of last century as result of the aspiration of the Macedonians for creation of their own state which formally is not connected with DPMNE), in his introductory speech - report on the work of the party between two conventions, declared that his party (he is at its head ever since the foundation) was a typical example how a party was created, how it matured, how it struggled and how it won power. Contrary to majority of Macedonian politicians, Georgievski tends to be honest even if it may be counter-productive for him and his party. He showed this not only by admitting this. On the same occasion he said that by forming the coalition with the Democratic Alternative (DA) at the latest parliamentary elections in which they won as the coalition called "For Changes", a political force was created that had never existed on the territory of Macedonia before, underlining that for that reason, in the spirit of changes, it was offered to the Democratic Party of the Albanians (DPA) to participate in the government coalition, and in the latest reconstruction of the cabinet, also to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). "We could hardly win on our own. That cost us eight years of life in the opposition", declared the current prime minister Georgievski and added: "We are powerful in Macedonia, but we are that because we have got DA, DPA and LDP with us".

Almost simultaneously, president of the Social Democratic League of Macedonia (SDSM) and former prime minister Branko Crvenkovski held several debates in cities inside Macedonia and at the convention of this party's youth organization, all in the spirit of the proclaimed policy that SDSM had to reconstruct its local party infrastructure and invest into "fresh" cadre in preparation for the next parliamentary elections which may not happen for another three and a half years. The estimate of SDSM is that the new authorities have done nothing in the past six months to carry out the platform thanks to which they had won in the parliamentary elections and that it is losing support of its voters. Moreover, the crisis in the region and its repercussions on Macedonia are used as additional evidence of ineptness of the new administration. As a leitmotif in these debates Crvenkovski used the allegation that VMRO-DPMNE and DPA as its coalition partner practically have different party interests. The former are pro-Bulgarian oriented (improvement of relations between Macedonia and Bulgaria which was the first state to recognise Macedonia under its constitutional name that became evident after the new administration had come to power) and even its Albanian partners (DPA) have lately started to praise its attitude to it. On the other hand, Crvenkovski claims that Albanian radicals are also in Georgievski's government, who are to say the least in favour of federal Macedonia.

All this is happening according to the model of a police dossier published by Vecer daily from Skopje at the height of the election campaign. According to this scenario, VMRO-DPMNE and DPA, and their leaders Ljubco Georgievski and Arben Xhaferi (with restrained presence of Vasil Tupurkovski, leader of DA) are accused of having formed a committee in Vienna whose main task is to divide Macedonia. On the one hand there is "Greater Albania", and on the other "Greater Bulgaria". Crvenkovski is now repeating the same accusation but in a more moderate form.

On the other hand, Crvenkovski seems to be using the presence of NATO soldiers on Macedonian soil, NATO planes flying in Macedonian sky and the latest agreement of Macedonian government to accept the increase of the number of NATO soldiers which will reach the total of 30 thousand. He is insisting on anti-NATO disposition which to be perfectly honest, had a few strong manifestations which the police claims will soon be corroborated as plotted by foreign (Serb inclusive) secret services. But it is hard to believe that anyone of the local analysts will take it for granted that majority of Macedonian citizens have anti-NATO feelings or that they consider Serb population victims and not the banished Albanians, despite of the stressed threat to the fragile inter-ethnic balance and similar, or the latest campaign in the media in Macedonian language according to which spokesman of DPA Adelina Marku in an interview for France Press allegedly declared discontent of her party which demands that Macedonia finally become a multi-ethnic (?) state in which the main role will be played by the Macedonians and the Albanians (multi-ethnicity but with two entities?) or the latest declarations of Xhaferi which were interpreted in the same way but with addition that he will most probably leave the political scene and that he will be succeeded by a radical Albanian (vice-president Menduh Tachi, perhaps?).

Of course, the inexperienced government coalition has at the very beginning acquired an advantage which the experienced "civil" oriented SDSM and its earlier coalition partners never had from proclamation of Macedonian independence until parliamentary elections in the end of 1998 during the rule of which interethnic tensions were "highly" present. VMRO-DPMNE, whose main slogan prior to the first elections at pre-elections rallies in 1990 was "Pure Macedonia" (demanding that it be ethnically pure), which at its first convention in Prilep a couple of years later announced that it would hold its second convention in Thessaloniki (united ethnic Macedonia), at the second convention held in Prilep stressed loud and clear that Macedonia without Macedonian Albanians could not exist and that without the Albanians in the government there could be no legitimate cabinet. At the third convention in Kicevo, they even went a step further and traced the way for the current coalition in which, by will of the victors who had already ensured parliamentary majority, a place was offered to the formerly "radical" Albanian DPA. Now in Strumica, Georgievski said that the party had to change its behavior, vocabulary...

In the election campaign and during parliamentary elections in the end of 1998, those who won them skilfully evaded dealing with interethnic relations, tensions and similar. They chose the economy as the battlefield and pushed SDSM and its partners on the ground where they started to lament and worry about the "Macedonian national cause", interests, etc... Although it is clear that no true social political party exists in Macedonia, SDSM and the failed socialists promoted themselves into rightists although according to their platforms they are supposed to be reformed leftists. The former revolutionary and radical, both the Macedonian and the Albanian, rightists became the most ardent supporters of the concept of civil society.

According to the way things are going now it seems that after the agreement to put an end to the crisis and hopefully quick resolution of Kosovo, with the already announced economic aid to the region, Macedonia will again, thanks to luck and not the wisdom of its politicians have another chance to be saved.

AIM Skopje

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