After the first round of presidential elections

YELLOW CARD FOR THE NEW AUTHORITIES

For the second time in a year Macedonia has shown that the elections cannot be won thanks to ones qualities, but rather because of the opponent's shortcomings. Same as last year when the coalition "For Changes" won parliamentary elections because voters wanted to punish the SDSM for its disastrous performance, it has now lost presidential elections because the voters were dissatisfied with its one-year rule.

AIM Skopje, November 3, 1999

The results of the first round of presidential elections in Macedonia came as a surprise even for those who were at first in the lead, as well as those who from the very beginning thought that they did not stand a chance. According to unofficial and incomplete results of the State Electoral Commission, Tito Petkovski, candidate of the strongest opposition party the Social-Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM), has been granted a visa for the second round having won over 120 thousand votes more than the candidate of the main ruling party VMRO-DPMNE, Boris Trajkovski.

In addition to candidates of the Albanian political parties who did not stand a chance even in theory of getting to the second round, the "old foxes", Vasil Tupurkovski, candidate of the Democratic Alternative (DA) and Stojan Andov, candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party, were also pushed to the sidelines of the Macedonian political scene. In his first statement after learning the results of the first round, Petkovski did not hide his surprise at the edge he had secured over his opponent with whom he will run in the second round of the presidential elections, while the VMRO-DPMNE and especially its leader and the Macedonian Prime Minister Ljupco Georgievski, seemed to have accepted the first public comments that "people have punished VMRO-DPMNE" and started cleansing their ranks so as to save what could still be saved in the second round.

Naturally, despite the clear signs of dissatisfaction with its one-year long rule with its coalition partners (the Democratic Party of the Albanians - DPA was its partner in the government), the ruling party and its leader did not even dream that they would fare so badly already in the first round. All the more so as the SDSM was in two minds for quite a long time whether to even nominate Tito Petkovski as its candidate since he was a politician of the "old make" or simply to support Stojan Andov, as a joint candidate with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDK). Undoubtedly, already last November the electorate which had shown its distrust in the coalition bloc led by the SDSM and which practically ruled in the past eight years, now drastically demonstrated its dissatisfaction with the rule of the new government that was in power in the last twelve months or so. The message was sent and received.

The DA leader and its presidential candidate stated in his first public address that he would offer his resignation to his party as a moral act if it dropped out of the race in the first round, while Georgievski, the VMRO-DPMNE leader, blamed some local party leaderships and even some minister for the decline in his party's rating and hence demanded resignations of as many as nine local leaderships in major municipalities and announced a radical reconstruction of his cabinet. It is assumed that even some powerful ministers from his party's ranks will be ousted. Georgievski, but also his coalition partners, who have announced open discussions on the functioning of the ruling coalition government, have obviously taken note of the voters' warning and now seem ready to embark on a rescue operation to save what can still be saved.

It seems that the reasons for their defeat in the first round can not only be found in the fact that the Macedonian voters were dissatisfied with the effects of their year-long rule when, under the slogan "For Changes", they assumed responsibility to change the situation. Simple mathematics shows that it is probably true that the main mistake the present tripartite coalition made was the decision to put up their separate candidates at the presidential elections. No matter how paradoxically it might sound, taken together the votes that the three presidential candidates of the ruling coalition have won show that the coalition has not lost, but rather won the first round of the presidential elections because its three candidates got more than 500 thousand votes which would have been enough already in the first round had they nominated a single candidate!

The decision to nominate separate candidates was made by the leading VMRO-DPMNE which did not want the coalition to have a single nominee, such as charismatic Vasil Tupurkovski. In this way the VMRO-DPMNE wanted to show that it had nothing to do with the recognition of the Republic of China-Taiwan and the optimistic Programme of Reconstruction and Development on the basis of funds to be granted to Macedonia because of that recognition, whose personification is Tupurkovski himself. VMRO-DPMNE simply wanted to "wash its hands" of the whole affair. Even DPA was in favour while it was theoretically possible that a single candidate would stand a chance, thinking that that would strengthen the coalition. Of course, they now realize that they have made a mistake and that the first round results have reflected adversely on both the state and quality of relations within the coalition.

Practically, the coalition started breaking up even before the negotiations on the joint candidate for presidential elections have failed. During electoral campaign and despite the wish not to touch coalition partners, many harsh words were exchanged in the attempt to lay the blame for negative results on other parties. A part of the VMRO-DPMNE even developed a strategy on accusing Tupurkovski and the DA for unfulfilled objectives. Now, the DA has announced open talks about Government's priority tasks in carrying out the Programme on Reconstruction and Development as a prerequisite for the opposition's survival.

Now, on the eve of the second round of presidential elections, calculations show that Boris Trajkovski, the VMRO-DPMNE candidate, can count on victory only if in addition to the votes of the followers of his party, he gets coalition votes or at least some of 150 thousand votes that Tupurkovski had won and some of over 130 thousand votes that went to the DPA candidate, Muarem Nedjupi. But, Tupurkovski has already stated that the votes he had won in the first round were not safely put away in a bag to be handed over to Trajkovski, and the DPA leader said something similar after their friendly meeting. This practically means that DPA will not openly support Trajkovski. It is therefore hardly likely that in the second round it will "discipline" its voters to the benefit of the candidate of the VMRO-DPMNE coalition, if that is possible at all.

On the other hand, it is logical to assume that the Albanians, who have already played their role in the first round (showing that the majority of them are behind the DPA), will abstain from voting in the second round because they do not care for the race of Macedonian candidates. This will confirm that political activities on ethnic basis are continuing, although there elections showed modest signs that some kind of a civil concept was in the making. It was evident in some electoral units that apart from Macedonians "others" also gave their votes to Vasil Tupurkovski. It seems that the SDSM candidate Petkovski is ideologically closer to voters who have voted for Vasil Tupurkovski and even those who cast their votes in favour of Stojan Andov (over 100 thousand) and that they will most probably give him their votes if they show up at polling places in the second round.

The first round of presidential elections also had its effect on parties. It gave the VMRO-DPMNE and its leader a chance to get rid of those centers of power which have grown stronger and independent in the meantime. As for Liberal-Democrats they will probably split up into democrats and liberals, i.e. two factions, or rather parties, from which the LDP has originated in the first place. In any case, the good thing is that Stojan Andov, as a typical transitional political turncoat, is out of the picture for good. As for SDSM, if Petkovski gets the presidential office that will be hard on Branko Crvenkovski, the leader who lost in last year's parliamentary elections since the man whose nomination he was against, will win the presidential elections. It seems, that from a party point of view, the only winner will be Arben Xhaferi's DPA while their political opponent the Party of Democratic Prosperity of Abdurahman Aliti is a definite loser and its disappearance from the political scene is only a matter of time.

As things stand now, there are only theoretical chances for Boris Trajkovski to become the new President of Macedonia. In these ten days until the second round, his party leader Georgievski has to convince the voters that he will throw out the rogues from his party (and cabinet) who have directly caused the drop in the VMRO-DPMNE's rating and show that he has understood their message and is now "turning the leaf". Naturally, if that happens, he will need concrete help from the coalition partners, i.e. their appeal to their followers to vote for Trajkovski. If that happens then he will need their iron discipline as well. It will be necessary for all of them to turn out at the elections and vote for Trajkovski, just as they did for Tupurkovski and Nedjupi, which is very unlikely.

"Petkovski did not win, but Trajkovski lost" said someone recently. Tito Petkovski stands a great chance of triumphing in the second round, if everything goes as planned. In that case, Macedonia will get a president who is known as a politician of the old make from the socialist era, who was directly accused of being Yugo-nostalgic and a member of the notorious KOS (counter-intelligence service), which he never denied. It seems that it will be possible to stop Petkovski only if voters abstain in the second round. If the turnout is below 50 percent that would mean the calling of new presidential elections within six months.

AIM Skopje

Iso RUSI