1 One thing is certain about these last elections, and that’s that the word “historic” has been completely worn out and stripped of meaning. Truth be told, it started losing its weight from the very start of the new VMRO-DPMNE government, after last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, when they branded everything they did as historic a hundred times a day.
This time, however, they didn’t quite feel like boasting that their candidate, Orce Gjorgjievski, became the mayor of Skopje with the historically lowest number of votes. It wouldn’t hurt them to tone down the euphoria a bit. So, instead of just gloating over SDSM’s defeat, let them wrap their heads around the question of why they’ve reduced themselves to relying solely on their loyal voters and clients.
Now, if the word “historic” is becoming meaningless, perhaps we can take this opportunity to free ourselves from the shackles of history and start dealing, for once, with the future. Ideally, that would include the European Union.
The ruling party can downplay the negative assessment from the European Commission’s annual report all it wants by calling it a “little report.” The opposition can also get its kicks by accusing the government of steering the country away from the EU. But the fact remains that, for the third year in a row, no significant progress has been recorded in key areas, the judiciary and the fight against corruption, which shows that both the government and the opposition are lying to us. SDSM, who never stopped talking about the EU, instead of bringing us closer to the EU, managed to push the system backwards even in an election year, when results should have been at their best. And VMRO-DPMNE, for the second year now, hasn’t done a single thing it promised during the election year when it defeated SDSM.
When it comes to all the citizens of this country who are still stubbornly holding on to their Macedonian passport as the only passport we’d use to go to the EU, I can safely say that both the government and the opposition owe us a consensus. Not just on including the Bulgarians in our Constitution, but also on topics like efficient public administration, rule of law, meritocracy, the fight against corruption, a healthy economic environment, quality education, quality healthcare accessible to all, depoliticisation of the judiciary, depoliticisation of culture, a healthy environment, clean water, clean air… Basically, on everything they promise us before every election, everything we vote for, only to be lied to afterwards, with nothing delivered.
Otherwise, the parade of bin lorries flashing their rotating lights through the capital looks great. But they’re not bright enough to light our way to the EU.
2 Our situation with the EU can be summed up as being caught between a rock and a hard place. Not fully in, not fully out.
On one hand, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski will carry on complaining about the sinking feeling in his stomach, accusing SDSM and DUI of betrayal, telling the “real truth”, and demanding guarantees from the EU, even though he knows no one can give them. President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova will continue with her university lectures to foreigners about Kant, Bonaparte, Tito, Solomon, the Copenhagen criteria and the role of the ball as a playing prop.
On the other hand, the European Commission will keep scolding us for failing to take the decisive step of including the Bulgarians in our Constitution so that negotiations can finally begin. And that doesn’t go down well with the public, since it’s seen as blackmail and humiliation, something that has absolutely nothing to do with what should truly be a decisive step in terms of reforms for European life back home. So it’s not difficult at all for Mickoski to sound right when he says: “They’ll give us an A and then veto us again.”
That’s why I fear that now, with VMRO-DPMNE holding absolute power, we may have to accept that the EU question is a closed chapter. Just as the NATO question was a closed chapter after the Greek veto in 2008. I don’t know if anyone who remembers those 10 years after 2008 truly believes it will be any different now. Been there, done that. It’s not nice.
3 In the meantime, we’ll enjoy the spectacles of the government that the Prime Minister himself admits “seem a bit comical.” Yet he, too, took part with great enthusiasm in the parade of bin lorries and brooms gathered from all over the country, in a grand clean-up of Skopje, performed under the glare of spotlights and immortalised by drone footage.
And we, the citizens of Skopje, were impatiently waiting for the elections to finally end so they would empty our bins and spray our streets with water. Danela Arsovska proved incapable of clearing the rubbish, and VMRO-DPMNE, the party that brought her to power in 2021, left us suffocating in waste all summer, only to make the city sparkling clean the very next day after their victory.
For now, we’re just delighted that VMRO-DPMNE swooped in to save us from VMRO-DPMNE.
Who knows, during the next elections in 2029, we might run out of water during the campaign. So after we’ve voted them in again, we’ll wait 72 hours for them to let us have water to take a bath.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
