1 From time to time I follow the parliamentary session about the reconstruction of the Government, but I can’t really figure out whose child will become a prosecutor, whose wife is a judge, whose father is a lawyer… Honestly, I’m not so preoccupied with the idea whether the new reconstructed government will lead us to European progress, as much as I’m trying to imagine what politicians’ family gatherings look like. Imagine: the son is a prosecutor, the daughter is a judge, the father is an MP, the mother is a lawyer, the grandfather is a minister, the grandmother is a member of the Judicial Council, the cousin is a member of the Anti-Corruption Commission…
Our politicians have hired so many of their relatives in the courts and in the prosecutor’s office, that they’ll be able to choose which family member will prepare an indictment for them, and which family member will judge them. There’ll be no need to misuse the AKMIS system. You’ll definitely be assigned a family member as a judge. And imagine what it will look like when all those children, parents, grandparents and cousins from the family gatherings see each other in a courtroom. Trials will be true family dramas, literally.
2 All this time we had no idea what use is reconstructing the Government. They’ve been yapping about it for so long that we no longer know why they’re doing it. Especially after the two-week debate in the Assembly, I have absolutely no idea why Dimitar Kovachevski and Ali Ahmeti would go out on a limb like this with the Alliance for Albanians.
Not that I have anything against Alliance, or Arben Taravari’s ministers. It doesn’t matter if it’s Alliance, or Alternative, or DUI, or SDSM, or VMRO-DPMNE – it’s all the same. If someone has nothing better to do than watch the broadcasts from the Parliament they’ll see the MPs airing their dirty laundry until 2 o’clock in the morning. You’re stealing! You used to steal as well, didn’t you? You’re hiring relatives! You used to hire relatives as well, didn’t you? It’s not worth watching them even to poke fun at them. We’re talking about an assembly that doesn’t even bother to meet up and get something done. We’re talking about MPs whose measure of success is not how many laws they’ve passed, but how many thousands of euros they’ve collected as travel expenses.
It’s not like we’ve been lobotomized. We still remember what these guys from the opposition, who are now blaming the government, did in the past. We’re just feeling tired and lethargic because SDSM brought us to such a low point where VMRO-DPMNE is blaming them for the same thing they themselves were doing and because of which they were removed from power. And now, it’s not worth wasting time on pub-talk like “he really said it to his face”.
3 While the government and the opposition are counting who stole how much and who hired how many people on a state salary, the doctors and nurses from the public health sector organized a protest. Who did they protest to? Let them remember what they demanded at the protest because when the new minister and the new deputy minister of health are elected they’ll have to protest again. That way perhaps even the reconstruction of the Government might make some sense. So far it’s been meaningless.
In the hospital in Prilep two patients died after a routine surgery – from sepsis. Citizens from Prilep say, it’s just another Tuesday at the Prilep hospital. The operating theatres are closed, there are no surgeries, surgeons have nothing to do, patients are taken here and there, some to Bitola, some to Ohrid, some to Skopje. However, it doesn’t matter that at the moment Prilep doesn’t have a hospital, when it’s much more important that Alliance will have a minister of health, and I don’t know which other party, whichever it is, it’s all the same, will have a new deputy minister of health. As if the ministers and their deputies are there to solve problems in the public health sector, and not to satisfy the greed of party structures.
Just like the second director of the Health Insurance Fund, who surprised the public by not cutting his trip to America short when the hacking happened and the entire health system was blocked for two weeks. Why would he come back? The second director of the Fund is not hired there to work after all. DUI didn’t appoint him there so he’d be held accountable. He’s there for balance. So the Government wouldn’t be brought down. To keep the majority stable. Just like the economic directors of the clinics. They too are there so that the Government wouldn’t be brought down.
DUI party members aren’t expected to produce results, or to report on how they’re spending our money, why they’re using official cars for private trips, where they travel, why they travel, who they hire, why they’re getting paid… Because they’re leading us to the EU. It’s a European value that when someone from DUI is accused of crime, DUI immediately replies with: Are you trying to spark a war?
4 SDSM party members were quick to set up family electricity companies while they’re still in power. But unlike VMRO-DPMNE who were hiding behind other names, these guys are transparent. VMRO’s approach was “do you have a company that’s inactive”, so they took the money here and there through Belize and other attractive tax havens to open construction companies, oil companies, hotels… Their wives weren’t the ones who founded the companies. Guys in SDSM don’t hide the fact that their wives, sons, fathers, brothers are involved in electricity businesses.
Everything’s the same. Only the resource has changed. VMRO guys are into oil. SDSM guys are into photovoltaic panels.
DUI on the other hand are as cool as a cucumber. They’re reciting an over-decorated poem with all the politically correct phrases – Europe, green agenda, progress, responsibility, accountability… Who knows if they themselves believe in what they’re reciting, as for the others, they don’t give a damn. They’re sitting pretty. They’re even reciting about the fight against crime and the fight against corruption. If they start preaching about the fight against nepotism, you’d think, Jesus Christ – they’ll be the death of us. Death by laughter.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
