1 Biljana Ivanovska, a candidate for mayor of the Municipality of Centar supported by “Independent Together,” was fortunate that the chief of police in Skopje wasn’t as zealous as the chief of police in Demir Hisar, so when two police officers showed up at her home at 8:30 in the evening to deliver a summons from the prosecutor following a criminal complaint, and found no one in, they left. Had the Demir Hisar chief been in charge, he would no doubt have dispatched the Intervention Unit to scour the city for her. If the former president of the Anti-Corruption Commission had been feeling a bit under the weather, he would have called an ambulance for her, just as he did in Demir Hisar, when he attempted to transport the high school principal to the police station on a stretcher for questioning.
Following Ivanovska’s response, the Prosecutor’s Office announced that the competent public prosecutor contacted her by phone and offered her the option “if she wishes, and if she feels that giving a statement at the Public Prosecutor’s Office is some form of pressure, to postpone it until after the elections,” because it concerns a private criminal complaint which the Prosecutor’s Office hasn’t yet established as well-founded.
And just like that, an urgent case, so urgent the police had to ring Ivanovska’s doorbell at night, became non-urgent, something that can wait until after the elections.
I believe it’s a coincidence. The prosecutors were terrified of Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, who scolds them every day for not being good enough, and began clearing out cases en masse, and it seems the private criminal complaints were next in the queue. Among them was one against Ivanovska, dating back to her time as president of the State Commission for Preventing Corruption (SCPC), and the police chose to deliver it to her on the very same day she announced her candidacy for mayor of the Municipality of Centar, backed by independent citizens.
It sounds silly, but it works. We’ve seen it before. And we’ve certainly heard it before.
In Demir Hisar, they even called an ambulance to take the high school principal away on a stretcher, just to retrieve the school seal, so they could employ three party foot soldiers, and you expect them not to dig up an old complaint from an ordinary citizen against an independent candidate in the elections, one that must be served by the police. Especially since the votes of independent citizens are a nuisance to all parties.
2 Prime Minister Micoski claims that citizens’ standard of living is on the rise because the growth of salaries is higher than inflation.
Presenting the inflation rate as yet another of the historic achievement of the VMRO-DPMNE government, Mickoski explained that the 4 to 5 percent inflation is the result of rising prices in transportation and restaurants by as much as 24 or 25 percent and “higher salaries and pensions that have boosted demand and people can afford those prices for services, so the price of services increases as long as people can afford it.”
He went on to explain things like this: “If we have a salary increase of 11, 12, 13 percent on a monthly basis, and inflation, let’s say, averaging around 4 percent, then we have a net increase of 7 percent. What was the situation like a year and half, two years ago? Back then, average inflation was 15,18, 20 percent, while salary growth that was below the inflation rate, which means the standard of living was falling, that is in decline, unlike now, when it is on the rise”.
Which cinema is showing that movie in which salaries grow 11, 12, 13 percent per month? Why doesn’t the Prime Minister tell us, let’s all go together, we’d love to watch some science fiction too. It’s a shame for such beautiful movies to be seen only by him.
It’s like arguing with a waiter in a restaurant when he brings you a bloated bill. He starts a new calculation: You had two beers, three brandies, two bottles of sparkling water, a bottle of wine, twenty kebapchinja, a pork chop, one slice of hard cheese, today’s date, French fries, juice, two coffees and..Ah yes, you’re right, you didn’t order a salad. You’ve saved a fortune. Seven percent.
3 DUI announced that “the citizens of Chair know very well who Izet Mexhiti and his associate Visar Ganiu are,” and that “during their mandates, the municipality became the gold standard for crime, corruption, and chaos.”
Izet Mexhiti served as mayor of Chair for two terms, from 2005 to 2009, and from 2013 to 2017, as a DUI candidate. He was also the vice president of DUI.
DUI is making accusations that during Mexhiti’s rule, 225 million euros were stolen through illegal constructions and dubious legalisations. So 225 million euros were stolen – by DUI. And when VREDI accuses Bujar Osmani of spending millions of euros on illegal purchases during the time he was Minister of Health and Minister of Foreign Affairs, it starts to look like they left DUI simply because they weren’t allowed to steal enough.
The logic behind how DUI and the VREDI Coalition attack each other over the candidacies of until-recently fellow party members Bujar Osmani and Izet Mexhiti is about as sound as the logic behind the inflation and the standard of living. When DUI says that “citizens will say ‘no’ to illegal constructions, corruption, and personal interests,” it sounds as if DUI is running a campaign against DUI. And when VREDI says that Chair ranks sixth in terms of the number of illegal buildings and that illegal construction, corruption, and personal interests aren’t exclusive to Chair, it’s like VREDI is running a campaign against VMRO-DPMNE.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
