1 When Zoran Zaev became prime minister in July 2017 with the promise: “Let this evil never happen again,” the government coalition led by SDSM received a mandate from the citizens to accomplish just three things:
- To uncover the previous crimes
- To punish the wrongdoers
- To recover the embezzled public funds
They stopped at the first point. They only uncovered the crimes. They overlooked the other two points.
And? What can we conclude from the six years of rule by SDSM and DUI? That, in reality, they have always dreamed of being Nikola Gruevski and Sasho Mijalkov.
All they had to do was to amend the Criminal Code so they wouldn’t have to go to prison. If they’re caught stealing, the statute of limitations on their cases will expire faster, so they don’t even need to change their ID cards to serve their sentence in Struga. They wouldn’t need to, God forbid, hit the road and go somewhere far away from home and to post Facebook statuses from abroad. They’ll be able to spend the stolen money at home with no trouble.
They’ll be able to avoid getting blacklisted by the USA, unless absolutely necessary.
2 In an interview with TV 21, President Stevo Pendarovski said that certain judges deliberately shelved cases, allowing the statute of limitations for the illegal wiretapping of thousands of citizens against the then head of the Administration for Security and Counter Intelligence, Sasho Mijalkov, to expire. He complained that he too was a victim of the wiretapping and asked: “That case has been sent for retrial three times. Why haven’t they concluded it”?
Pendarovski is now in the final year of his term and he still makes statements as if he were an ordinary citizen facing injustice noting that if he were younger, he would’ve moved out of the country. He forgets that, unlike the citizen facing injustice Pendarovski, President Pendarovski had the option not to sign the law that enabled the statute of limitations of numerous criminal acts to expire, including the illegal wiretapping of his own phone. Has he just realised that judges shelve cases, shortly after he signed the law?
Some delay trials, others send cases for retrials, the Judicial Council doesn’t convene for specific individuals, the Government proposes laws, the MPs pass them… What can you do? The lives of political elite criminals must be made easier, so everyone lends a hand – prosecutors, investigators, judges, the Judicial Council, the Council of Public Prosecutors, the Government, MPs… and now even the president has decided to make their lives easier.
It shouldn’t bother Citizen Pendarovski that he had been wiretapped for three years and that there won’t be a legal resolution for the illegal wiretapping, not just for him, but also for the thousands of his fellow citizens. As if it never happened.
Take me as an example; it doesn’t bother me in the least that I had to go to court twice to testify because I’d been wiretapped for two and a half years. At least now, I can have peace of mind knowing they won’t summon me a third time, plus I’ve forgotten how much I requested in damages the first time I testified. It’s embarrassing, what will the accused think of me?
Let’s just allow life to move on.
3 The statement of the Dutch ambassador, Dirk Jan Kop, that there’s no political will for reforms in Macedonia was met with delight and he asked: “Where did the money of our taxpayers go?” Since, that’s what we all want to know, we all think the same, but the ambassador was done putting up with it.
The Dutch ambassador received applause for asking the most logical question a Dutch official funded by Dutch taxpayers could ask. He’s sent to Macedonia to protect the interests of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. And there’s nothing strange in the fact he asked where the money of Dutch taxpayers’ goes.
Has anyone else in Macedonia received applause for asking: Where’s the money of the Macedonian taxpayers? That money amounts to much more than the money of all foreign donors. Each day, every one of us contributes significantly more to the Macedonian budget than foreign donors, yet in Macedonia we don’t have a Macedonian ambassador who’d be done putting up with it and would ask: Where’s our money?
How come we’re not done putting up with them?
If you pose the question “Where’s my money” to someone in the government, be it at the state or local level, not only will you not receive applause, but they’ll make you look like a fool. They’ll laugh in your face. They’ll poke fun at you, they’ll accuse you of getting paid by someone to ask such questions, of trying to bring Gruevski back, of envying them because they have money and privileges, of being a whiner, small-minded, stirrer, or an agitator… and not just the guys from the government, but citizens in general will question your sanity for asking such foolish questions.
Recently, it happened to me, I asked who gets to ride the government plane, what it’s used for, how many times it has flown, and a civil servant responded with: It’s easy to criticise, go ahead, win elections, and then criticise! I was left speechless. I didn’t know how to respond to such audacity from someone I’m paying.
The Dutch ambassador said that they’ve already invested Dutch funds three times to raise awareness for various projects, with two instances of action plans and four instances of training. However, Macedonian citizens still haven’t realised that all state officials and public services are paid with their money. And that those people are our civil servants. Someone came all the way from the Netherlands to ask where their money is, but we here don’t bother asking where our money is.
How can corruption disappear, when none of us, who cast our vote in elections, are bothered by it?
4 Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski announced that in a week or two the essential data for a legal solution will be ready, aiming to adjust officials’ salaries to a “more acceptable level”, which had already been increased by 78% for seven months with a decision of the Constitutional Court.
If it took the Government seven months to even initiate a discussion about one of the worst moves it’s made, in every sense, politically, economically and morally, then it will take seven years to find an “acceptable and sustainable” resolution regarding officials’ salaries. Right on schedule for our EU membership in 2030.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
