1 Sometimes, when I’m watching the Assembly Channel on TV, I wonder if the MPs are aware that their loved ones might be watching them as well. Especially, when there’s a question time session. Are they aware that when they’re hurling those vile insults at their political opponents, there are other people listening, their family, their neighbours, the friends they hang out with and their children…? Do they practice at home in front of a mirror how to properly pronounce all those curses, slurs, lies they say on the parliamentary rostrum? What’s the effect they want to achieve? Why would you need a voter who gets fired up by curses?
The Assembly Channel is the face of the horror of the Macedonian political elite. There’s no ideology there, no debate, no exchange of experiences and ideas. There’s only a contest of who’d be viler than the other. And by the way, admittedly, VMRO-DPMNE has the upper hand over others. The one leading the charge now is the MP Dragan Kovachki. As I see it, choosing between the vuvuzelas of his fellow party members and his personal insults to Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski, perhaps it’s better to have that racket so we wouldn’t have to hear the obscenities coming out of an MP’s mouth.
Once they’ve spread their poison they’ll go to church and have a photo taken, they’ll take communion, they’ll kiss the hands of the bishops, they’ll light a candle and will moralize about Christian values.
How far will this hypocrisy go? Then, we wonder why there are fights on the busses. Well, this political elite is promoting the official policy – to hate each other. We’re expected to live with the poison they’re spreading among us every day. And we should expect that with this political elite everything will be ok in the grim winter that’s coming.
2 Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski should also be trusted that everything will be ok, especially after the extraordinary press conference he held at night, when he revealed that there will be hot water. Truth be told, he looked a bit like an irritable smart-arse director, but the journalists did irritate him – by asking him questions at midnight. He answered in such an intelligent manner: “If you’ve been paying your bills, I don’t know if you pay bills in your household…” Ha ha… And the ministers behind him are laughing, delighted, wow, he said it to their face, stupid journalists. He told them he’d grant them hot water as well. You’re hilarious, boss! Ouch, they had it coming…
Our prime minister is quite bold when he’s on home ground, at Ilindenska, next to Vardar. However, at East River in New York, a week ago, he read poetry at the UN General Assembly. Instead of beating around the bush about world peace and peace in the country, in his speech he should focused on Bulgarians and how unprincipled the EU is for destabilizing our country and for disrespecting minority rights in an EU member state. At home, he belittles the Macedonian journalists he’s called to an extraordinary press conference in the middle of the night, that would make you think Putin has already launched nuclear missiles on Macedonia, whereas last year, at the June EU Summit when he first rejected the French Proposal in Brussels, he was literally running away from Bulgarian journalists. He should’ve got up the nerve to show them how cynically witty he is, so they’d quote him in all of their media. Instead, he let Edi Rama save the day, to tell them that “Bulgaria is a shame for the EU with what it is doing to Macedonia”. We expected him to defend Macedonia, there, where he’d be heard by international journalists, and not at home, where he’s having a go at domestic journalists with witty remarks like “I hope you as media are aware that there’s a war in Europe…” Ah… If we’re not aware, then who is? You?
Even here at home, if he’s so tough, why doesn’t he show his teeth to Ali Ahmeti and Artan Grubi, who are running a parallel government? Why does he let DUI lead our country on their own, without taking him into account?
After all, he called a press conference, the journalists are there to ask questions, and if Kovachevski doesn’t like the questions – well, too bad. The basis of a politician’s polite behaviour, especially of a prime minister, is to have an answer to every question asked by journalists or at least to try to give a credible answer. Since, it’s not the journalists the prime minister responds to. He responds to the public. And this is not a clash of egos. This is his attitude towards the public, which the prime minister belittled by covering his ignorance or incompetence with rudeness and arrogance.
3 The Minister of Finance, Fatmir Besimi, announced that in 9 months the state has made VAT refund of 30.7 billion denars and boasted that it was the “historically highest level of VAT refund in our economy so far”.
The VAT collection hasn’t increased because they’re more efficient in collecting it. It’s because everything is more expensive. The higher electricity bills are, the more money there is for VAT. The more expensive products are in shops, the more money there is for the VAT percentage. Historically highest prices, historically the most money from VAT. I think those maths lessons are taught in second or third grade. If not even earlier.
What do they think when they’re writing the announcements? That all smart people have left the country, and only the stupid ones remain? And that they are smart leaders of a stupid people.
4 It’s interesting how the political waters in Macedonia are stirred up. In Skopje, money was the reason for the falling-out between the mayor who won with the support of VMRO-DPMNE, Danela Arsovska, and the party that supported her, but an interesting coalition was formed between Levica, GROM and DUI. In DUI, there are even some “fiery” ones who are against Artan Grubi.
In which other party is there a shoot-out with Kalashnikovs when local heads of the party branches are elected. Did they fall out over ideology? Do they fight over democracy? No, not at all. All of this political turmoil is over money. For personal gain, although they say it’s in the interest of the party.
And now we are to be worried sick whether the Government would collapse if the “fiery” ones from DUI leave the ruling majority in the Assembly. We’re in for a grim winter, the Covid crisis is still not over, prices are rising, Putin is threatening a nuclear disaster, and the stability of our country depends on the parties fighting over money.
5 It’s not hard to see why citizens are sick and tired of dirty tricks, dishonesty and politics in general. They are either so resigned that they don’t go out to vote, or they vote for some clowns that they find amusing, to their own detriment. Out of spite. Or – let’s try these.
For example, I was worried that in Italy, one of the six founding states of the European Community from which the European Union grew, the extreme right came to power for the first time after Mussolini, but many weren’t upset by the fact that the ones who won are successors of fascism, but they found it more important that Italy will get a woman as prime minister for the first time.
Desperate, when we have no choice, we also mix up theses. But in the case of Giorgia Meloni, I don’t know if there’s a worse disservice for women in any profession, and especially in politics, than a successor of fascism as prime minister.
Men or women – it doesn’t matter. This is no time to hide incompetence behind gender.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
