1 What’s got into the judges that they’ve finally dared to write to Prime Minister Mickoski and tell him he has “crossed the line of good behaviour”? After three months of him insulting them daily, claiming they don’t even deserve the salary they receive, and after he recently offered to donate part of his salary “if they judge according to the law”, the Supreme Court, the Judicial Council and the Association of Judges have now responded that “the biggest problem in the judiciary is not the independence of judges, which is being undermined by constant interference from the executive and legislative branches.”
Mickoski repeatedly claims that the reforms demanded by the European Union relate only to increasing the salaries of prosecutors and judges, and that there is no money for that because “someone had diabolically put the state and the unborn children in debt”. And then he says: “Let the public say, if they think we should double the salaries of prosecutors and judges, just say so.”
How exactly is the public supposed to say whether the salaries of prosecutors and judges should be increased? Will we go to a referendum over their pay? Did we vote on the salaries of judges in the local elections?
When he talks about “diabolical debts”, is he referring to the 700 million euros “Skopje 2014” project that’s falling apart before our eyes? Or was that, at the time, a merciful debt, taken for the good of the party that acquired millions of dollars in assets during that period? In that case, let the public say whether the legal proceedings over the assets acquired by VMRO-DPMNE while it was in power should go ahead.
Considering Mickoski’s overwhelming parliamentary majority in the Assembly, what’s stopping him from changing the criminal law that SDSM passed with the help of VMRO-DPMNE, the one that reduced sentences for officials accused of corruption and allowed the statute of limitations to expire faster? Is he perhaps waiting for yet another legal case against his fellow party members to expire? On top of that we’re paying them compensation. They stole from us diabolically, and we’re mercifully paying them extra.
How about we ask the public whether MPs deserve their salaries?
When Mickoski says, “they’ll get everything in the coming months, but I’ll demand only one thing – accountability, we’ll see how every denar of public money is spent, so that some of them don’t end up on the wrong side of the courtroom,” I can’t help but think to myself, let’s ask the public whether we should abolish the judiciary and have only a party-run court?
In a democratic state, there’s the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branch. The Prime Minister, as the executive authority, can demand accountability only from his ministers and from the civil servants he has appointed. Judges and prosecutors aren’t some employees of his private company whose salaries depend on his whim. Yet he even goes so far as to threaten them that some of them might end up on the wrong side of the courtroom.
Finally, will someone please tell Mickoski that in a democratic state the Prime Minister isn’t the one who monitors, prosecutes, and judges?
2 Two American companies from the automotive industry are closing their factories in the free-trade zones, leaving 1,000 workers unemployed.
The Prime Minister was visiting a factory in Ohrid when he said that “this should not be understood as the end of the world”.
When the Government strikes a deal with a foreign or domestic private company, and even when they’re merely photographed received donations at cultural and healthcare events, it’s suddenly a historic achievement and the credit goes to VMRO-DPMNE. When a private company shuts down and 1,000 families are left without a steady income, then “it’s not the end of the world”.
Downplaying things is always a convenient cure for hiding failure. Especially when you have a good propaganda machine behind you.
3 Answering questions about the European Commission’s report, Mickoski said that the EU is bullying us. “If we change our Constitution, we will be the best, and if we manage not to be Macedonians, to be something else, we will be the best, the same way someone is bullying us and wants to stop Macedonia from advancing to the European Union,” said the Prime Minister.
Not that I’m surprised by this response. This rhetoric only shows that the European Commission’s remarks about the stagnation of reforms across almost every field mean very little to this Government. We have Bulgaria as an enemy, and for now, that’s quite enough for VMRO-DPMNE to keep bragging that it will save us.
So what if we don’t join the EU. The world won’t collapse.
We will.
4 Since the Government has managed to solve all the problems both abroad and at home, the only thing left to deal with is SDSM. The way VMRO-DPMNE are hell-bent on replacing Venko Filipche by holding press conferences every day, you’d think they care more about the future of SDSM than SDSM’s own members do. Why would the topic of Filipche’s possible removal from the party leadership be of public interest? And why would it concern the members and voters of VMRO-DPMNE? Other than the need to say something, anything.
Instead of celebrating how many municipalities they won and saying to themselves, right, let’s see what we can do, let’s use the power we’ve gained, they’ve occupied themselves with Venko Filipche and Zoran Zaev. Surely they don’t have their own candidate for president of SDSM, do they?
Their excuse is that the country needs a strong opposition, which is why they care about SDSM. As if they’re the only party allowed to be in opposition. As if VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM hold exclusive licences for power and opposition. If SDSM survives, let it survive. If it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world.
In fact, after winning the Local Elections and securing absolute power at both state and local levels, it will become increasingly difficult for VMRO-DPMNE to find excuses for its failures. It’s far easier for them to busy themselves with SDSM than with the country they’re supposed to be running.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
