1 Let these elections just be over already. Not only am I sick and tired of this campaign, but I’m actually embarrassed that we’re even talking about the rubbish all over Skopje. It turned out that the process of collecting rubbish from bins is some sort of impossible mission, some sort of science fiction. How do they manage to collect rubbish in other countries where the mayors aren’t from the same party as the prime minister?  Back here, as everyone can see, we’ve spent weeks debating and analysing whether the rubbish can be collected in 72 hours. Are we electing mayors with a vision for development, or choosing the next head of the bin-collectors?

Sooner or later, they’ll collect the rubbish from the streets around the bins. But who’s going to clear the rubbish out of the parties?

Yet the parties aren’t really to blame. We, the citizens, are to blame. By looking at the rubbish they’ve used to blackmail us, we’ve lost the ability to recognise vision.

And I couldn’t care less about the parties. I care about us. Because that rubbish will still be here when the next elections come around. Those are the same officials we keep electing over and over again, although with each election cycle things get worse and worse, as our standards keep sinking.

Isn’t it our defeat that we’ve allowed the parties to convince us that collecting rubbish is the only thing we should expect from them?

2 Sooner than later, those much-talked-about 72 hours will pass, and we’ll forget all about the rubbish blackmail. I don’t know if people in other municipalities are facing the same issue, but here in Skopje, foggy days are ahead, and we’ll start complaining about the pollution again. That topic, of course, didn’t even make it into these local elections. Then one day it will rain, we’ll all get in our cars and get stuck in traffic for hours. Another issue no one bothered to mention in these elections. Until, eventually, a sunny day dawns and we forget about pollution and traffic, just as we’ll forget about the rubbish?

But I wonder, what kind of sunny day dawned on us that we’ve already forgotten Kochani? The relatives of the dead children are the only ones left to remember the tragedy.

In these elections, we didn’t demand a change in the policies that led to the murder of 63 young people. We didn’t demand changes in urban planning, in the policy on illegal construction, in the issuing of building and conversion permits, in safety systems, we didn’t demand the depoliticisation of inspection services, of the police, of our local and central authorities…

When we look for ways to save ourselves from the rubbish we’re buried in, we’re not even kidding ourselves that we can demand a high quality of life from these politicians. But they could at least provide decent conditions for a safe life. Since we don’t demand that from them, there’s no reason for them to actually provide clean pavements, fresh air, landfills that don’t pollute, modern schools, peaceful neighbourhoods, controlled noise levels, restaurants whose chimneys don’t face their neighbours’ bedrooms, safe construction site, unobstructed access to fire engines, unobstructed access for ambulances, nightclubs where our children will come home safe and sound…

Politicians don’t have a reflex to serve the needs of citizens, but rather to stay in power with minimal effort and maximum personal gain. And since we, as citizens, don’t even ask them to provide the basic conditions for staying alive, why would we expect them to deliver anything we never demanded from them as the very people who keep voting them in?

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski