1 Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski claims that the local elections will be unsuccessful, pointing to the possibility of independent citizen lists being submitted with just two signatures. After the Assembly failed, even after having scheduled the elections, to adopt a new Electoral Code to regulate the participation of independent candidates in the elections, Mickoski says that “the ballot paper might be 7 or 8 meters long and it could discourage citizens from turning out to vote and lower the turnout threshold”.

I don’t know whether we’re supposed to take his statement as a warning or a threat, when he says that “the irresponsible behaviour of certain individuals or political parties leads to such scenarios.” It brings to mind that old saying “I’m talking to my daughter, but it’s the daughter-in-law who should be listening.”

Because yes, we do remember. We remember all too well when Radmila Shekerinska of SDSM had to run against Rada Shekerova from SDPM. When Rada Shekerova didn’t quite do the trick, they rolled out a certain Radmila Shukuroska. Jani Makraduli faced a similar stunt, with a Janis Makris opposing him in the same electoral unit. And then there were Igor Ivanovski and Ljupcho Nikolovski from SDSM, both challenged by none other than Igor Ivanovski and Ljupcho Nikolovski for the MP seats.

Why would citizens be discouraged by long ballot papers which might feature a lot of candidates supported by citizens’ signatures? Are they meant to be scared by the sheer number of options in the elections? Perhaps they’ll think: Oh no, look at all these choices, I might get a headache, I better not vote at all. Because only VMRO-DPMNE, SDSM, DUI and the Vredi Coalition are entitled to participate in politics. If anyone else meddles in their affairs, they dismiss the elections as unsuccessful straight away, so the Government will appoint commissioners in the Municipalities.

Oh yes. It’s terrifying if anyone could run for office, not just cast a vote.

I beg your pardon, Prime Minister, but isn’t that the very point of democracy?

2 Plus, if the Prime Minister is so worried that the local elections might be unsuccessful, then why hasn’t the ruling coalition adopted a new Electoral Code to regulate the participation of independent candidates? It was SDSM who botched it first. Near the end of their term, they rushed to pass changes to make it extremely difficult for independent citizen initiatives to take part in the elections, or, in the best-case scenario, ensure they don’t appear on the electoral rolls at all. However, VMRO-DPMNE holds a stable majority in the Assembly. How come, after more than a year in power, they haven’t passed a new Electoral Code?

For more than 30 years, the OSCE has been monitoring us. They’ve monitored dozens and dozens of election cycles – parliamentary, presidential, local – and God knows how many recommendations they’ve issued, and despite all of those recommendations, our Assembly met to change the electoral rules only after the elections were scheduled. On top of that, it was an emergency session, because the MPs missed the deadline set by the Constitutional Court, with the excuse that DUI were being uncooperative, what can you do, they’re the ones stalling the process. It’s always DUI’s fault anyway, isn’t it? So, since they no agreement was reached to place independent lists within a clear legal framework, the only thing left for the Prime Minister to do, of course, on behalf of all the major parties, was to scare off voters that they would face an overwhelming number of choices and they wouldn’t be able to make sense of it all.

When the rules are explicit and fair, only then can we talk about fair elections. Everything can be resolved. When there’s good will, of course. Well, no such thing as good will exists within the parties. My concern is that we’ll be having this exact conversation ahead of the next parliamentary elections in 2028, and again before the presidential and local ones in 2029… As long as the system continues to benefit the major parties, they couldn’t care less about the Constitutional Court’s rulings and deadlines. As for the expertise of OSCE, even less.

When it comes to citizens… They’re not used to serving citizens. They’re used to citizens serving them. This is why they’re scared of their votes. And that’s why they’ll keep trying to scare them with this seven-or-eight-metre-long Bogeyman.

Ah, if only I could be near those two world-renowned architects brought in by the Chair mayoral candidates, Bujar Osmani and Izet Mexhiti, to offer ideas on how to urbanise the municipality. What exactly do they say to them as they show them around Chair? What do Izet Mexhiti, who served two terms as Chair’s mayor under DUI, and Bujar Osmani from DUI actually show them in a municipality that’s been ruled by DUI ever since the party was formed?

Surely, the conversation goes something like: Would you just look at this chaos? What sights await the world-renowned architect from Turkey, Bayram Vardar? Plenty, I’d say. He’s Muslim, and yet after a stroll down “Plastic Street,” he might get the urge to cross himself. The same goes for “John Kennedy” Street. The same goes for the world-renowned architect from Mexico, Michel Rojkind. He might end up crossing himself with both hands.

And there they are, Osmani and Mexhiti, eagerly explaining: Everything you see here, we did it all ourselves. And the ones before us. And the ones before them. They were our people too, fellow party members. See these buildings with windows the size of rifle slits? We legalised every one of them. And this land that’s state-owned, but we handed it over to private developers. We’ve snatched that as well.

I think to myself, it’s wonderful that both Osmani from DUI and Mexhiti from the Vredi Coalition have brought in world-renowned architects. It’s a true civilizational leap that the mayoral candidates from Albanian parties have decided to concern themselves with urbanism, so they included it in their electoral programmes. Because, until now, their main focus was counting how many Albanians have been employed in state institutions and municipal public enterprises and how many signs are bilingual.

Ah, if only Robert Badinter could rise from the dead. The mayoral candidates from municipalities with a dominant Albanian population don’t seem to stop mentioning him. Because without Badinter, they’re not even allowed to collect the rubbish off the streets.

As for the world-renowned architects, the story’s already over. And not just in Chair. As if we’ll make a separate state out of Chair. The entire city of Skopje has been urbanistically destroyed. The urban renewal train left Kenzo Tange’s ruined station a long time ago. It’s a pity. The man was brought in to redesign Skopje after the catastrophic earthquake in 1963. And in Japan in the 1950s, he worked on rebuilding Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb. He was a fitting choice, because Skopje in 2025 looks as if it too had survived a nuclear apocalypse, and yet nature is struggling to restore the landscape here and there.

Imagine if Kenzo Tange were to rise from the dead and join Badinter. If only to clean up the city together.

That’s how far our standards have fallen. We’re supposed to be grateful if the rubbish in the capital gets collected on a daily basis. That’s the level of expectation we’ve reached with the sake parties that have been scaring us with Bogeymen for the past thirty-something years.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski