1 If, in 2025, in the middle of a local election campaign, the main topic in our capital is uncollected rubbish and how rats will eat us, what will be the topic of the local elections in 2029?
Air pollution is a problem if we look at it from the perspective of the 21st century. However, from the perspective of the late Middle Ages, that problem doesn’t exist at all. The same goes for public transport. Skopje residents have come to terms with living without city buses, or with buses that, even when they do exit, rarely turn up. Stray dogs biting someone every day are also a problem if you live in an urban environment in the 21st century. But in the Middle Ages, that must have been perfectly normal. In the 16th century, we already had an aqueduct, yet we’ve quickly forgotten that, last summer, parts of the capital were left without drinking water.
As we’re relentlessly advancing backwards through history, four years from now we’ll have gone from the Middle Ages to the time of Alexander the Great. When people had no idea about the dangers of infectious diseases.
2 Oh, as if it were yesterday, the razzmatazz when, four years ago, new bins were brought to Skopje and placed on the pavements right next to the boulevards, and then the city government, when Petre Shilegov was mayor, painted new cycle lanes that went around them, because cyclists were complaining. Even Danela Arsovska, as a candidate for mayor supported by VMRO-DPMNE, held a press conference in front of a bin to declare that cycle lanes were dysfunctional because cyclists didn’t have the freedom to enjoy the ride. Four years later, people can’t reach the bins, not on foot, not by bike, and to be honest, not even the bin lorry can come near, assuming there’s one that isn’t broken down.
What’s happening to Skopje now, after the authorities have suffocated us with rubbish, is a test of civic awareness. They’ve seen how low we’ve sunk when it comes to tolerating a decline in the quality of life. They bury you in rubbish and say, vote for me and I’ll save you from the rubbish. That’s racketeering 101. They smash up your shop and then say: I’ll come to protect you.
Since this blackmail has gone through unpunished, it means racketeering is becoming a political norm of governance.
3 One of these days, the parties in power will easily convince their voters that having rats is actually a good thing. After all, what kind of capital would we be if we didn’t have rats, when all great metropolises have their share of mice and rats. In the past, when citizens protested against uncontrolled construction, the concrete jungle, and asked for more parks, the government replied: Whoever wants greenery should move to the countryside. Their new motto seems to be: Whoever doesn’t want mice and rats should move to the mountains.
We saw just how much a voter can swallow when told how to vote by their party after VMRO voters gave their support to Bilal Kasami of VLEN for another terms as mayor of Tetovo, and he, in turn, urged VLEN voters in Kichevo to vote for Fatmir Dehari of DUI, rather than for the candidate of his coalition partner, VMRO-DPMNE. Kasami says: In places where Albanians make it to the second round, we will support the Albanians.
The leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski, said that they were “bleeding” and it was very difficult for him when he saw his party members in Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, Chair and Debar having to vote for VLEN’s candidate, and that, in return, they received no “respect for their sacrifice.”
And now, who will the VMRO-DMNE members in Tetovo vote for, after being convinced that not having their own Macedonian candidate for mayor was in Macedonia’s strategic interest? Will they vote for VLEN, even though Bilal Kasami “stabbed them in the back,” or for DUI, which, according to Mickoski, was supposed to have been strategically eliminated from politics. He also said that DUI is already a finished story. The party told its voters that the people from the VLEN Coalition are the good guys, and they’re “one of us.” Well, all right then, only Bilal Kasami from BESA is not good. And they’re angry with Kasami, not with their leader for making a wrong assessment.
Strangely enough, although the name of Kasami’s party translates as “oath,” he didn’t keep his own oath even when he was forming a coalition with Zoran Zaev for the 2020 parliamentary elections. And the saying “the stone comes from nearby” still echoes from the days of the wiretapped conversations between Sasho Mijalkov and Musa Xhaferi.
On the other hand, who will VLEN’s voters vote for in Kichevo? For Aleksandar Jovanovski from VMRO-DPMNE, just because VLEN tells them Fatmir Dehari is immoral and “holding Albanians hostage”? Or against VMRO-DPMNE because Bilal Kasami, from the same party VLEN, now tells them: It doesn’t matter that he’s from DUI, vote for him because he’s Albanian.
Obviously, both VMRO-DPMNE and VLEN know their voters well if they can convince them who to vote for so easily.
4 And the opposition coalitions were quite strange. For example, SDSM went into coalition with the Desnica party. Social Democrats with right-wingers!? The Liberal Democratic Party teamed up with Integra. Liberals with conservatives, even hardcore conservatives!?
It all just shows that coalitions have nothing to do with party names. Just as party names have nothing to do with ideologies. And ideologies have nothing to do with the values these parties promote. And all of that, taken together, has nothing to do with reality.
And to top it all off, SDSM issued a statement titled: “VMRO-DPMNE is in panic because SDSM will win more municipalities than they did in 2017.” And – just like that, stupidity triumphs over reality.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
