1 Prime Minister Mickoski announced in an interview with Kanal 5 Television that he’d propose to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev that, together with Bulgaria, we submit a joint Resolution to the European Parliament, one in which “the centuries-old Macedonian, distinct identity and language will be clearly stated… and let’s start delivering.”
Brilliant. Let’s give Bulgaria the opportunity to keep the issue alive by opening a debate at the European level over whether we exist or not. To debate something that isn’t even up for debate. If MEPs are expected to vote for you in the European Parliament, that means they’ll be debating whether you exist in the first place.
By the way, how exactly will Macedonia, a country that isn’t even an EU member and has no MEPs, submit a resolution to the European Parliament through Bulgarian MEPs?
Mickoski isn’t conducting foreign policy. Mickoski’s pursuing a domestic policy aimed at his voters, supposedly concerned patriots, who are actually only interested in party jobs and privileges.
He should stop splitting hairs and coming up with various tricks just to keep turning the wheel of the Bulgarian mill, which is indefinitely delaying the start of our EU accession talks. At least hold off while there are still more of us here than abroad. At least while there are still only 200,000 Macedonians with Bulgarian passports.
Unlike the patriots with Bulgarian passports, who are already in the EU and lecturing us on the essence of being Macedonian, I want to enter the EU with a Macedonian passport.
2 The nitpicking over the amendments to the Electoral Code, aimed at preventing independent civic initiatives from participating in local elections, shows that the largest parties, the ruling VMRO-DPMNE and the opposition SDSM, along with DUI and the VREDI Coalition, never intended to govern in the public interest. For 30 years, their only concern has been securing the spoils looted from the state. They bicker daily, hurl the vilest insults at each other, pose as mortal enemies, yet they always reach an agreement not to meddle in each other’s “territory” once one of them has claimed it. Citizen initiatives are their nemesis because they expose that “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” agreement they’ve been running all along.
For God’s sake, we are all citizens of this country. Not just the party members.
I’m scared by the thought that this civic voice will be stifled, because the thought of there being only one opposition – SDSM, or only one government – VMRO-DPMNE is just as scary, so those of us who refuse to align with either party have no choice but to come to terms with the whirlpool of the VMRO-SDSM axis, and endure the violence inflicted on citizens who aren’t party members.
3 It’d be best for Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski to avoid raising the issue of party-based employment and wasting words on promises to end the practice, because reality keeps proving him wrong. On July 14, he said that he was building “a system that does not depend on party membership cards, but on justice, accountability, and equality,” and just three days later, it turned out that it does actually depend on party membership cards. At the open call by Air Traffic Control for non-essential job positions, the following people were employed: the husband of the director of the Central Registry, the vice-president of the VMRO-DPMNE’s youth wing, and the widow of a man convicted for the organised attack on Parliament on April 27, 2017.
It’s not as if even VMRO-DPMNE voters believed Mickoski when he was in opposition and claimed that “party membership cards should not be a criterion for employment, but knowledge and skills.” On the contrary, the majority of the party base expected that wouldn’t be the case. Just like the die-hard SDSM supporters, who expect that won’t be the case too.
Few people align themselves with the parties for ideological reasons. Right-wing, left-wing, give me a break. The only ideology these parties follow is to plunder public assets. And the idea that guides their voters is the expectation of a favour in return. They’ll receive a state salary or a short-term contract, while the politicians steal the big money.
4 The fact that even unaffiliated citizens are no longer surprised to read that the vice president of the party youth wing has been hired as a “VI Student” – whatever that means – in a state-owned company that controls air traffic is, so to speak, the “normality” imposed by the party loyalists. So in our country, it’s normal for high-rise neighbourhoods in Skopje to be left without running water for days. But is it normal for the children’s hospital “Kozle” to be left without water? And is it normal that no one is even making a fuss about it?
It’s normal for donors to bring drinking water to sick children, while hospital staff makes do with water from water tankers.
In other words, our expectations have been dragged so low that we’re supposed to be happy that the doctors treating our children were at least given a water tanker to wash themselves.
That’s because they’ve clogged Skopje with towering buildings. They’ve overburdened Vodno, it’s left without water. The mountain might collapse because of the high-rises that have sprung up on the plots of individual houses. They said “what matters is to build.” And “let’s sort it out for a fellow party member.”
Who exactly said we shouldn’t build?
The excuse mayors use to justify granting permits for uncontrolled construction is that it brings in lots of money from utility fees. That the municipality has to survive on something. But the money from utility fees is meant for utilities. Not for party-based employment in made-up municipal job positions. It’s meant, among other things, to upgrade the water supply network, since mayors don’t even recognise things like narrow streets and the lack of safe access as problems.
5 Obviously, the lack of water isn’t a problem for employees in the state institutions housed in the Macedonian Radio and Television building either. We shouldn’t be surprised when we can’t find them at work. People have to head to a shopping mall or a petrol station every time nature calls.
The lifts in the same building didn’t work for years. So when the government fixed them, it was celebrated with a video with dramatic music. Now they’ve got lifts, but no running water. They can’t have everything all at once, can they?
They’ll just have to be patient. The best is yet to come. There will be water too. I can’t wait for the next video that will celebrate water finally flowing from the taps.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
