1 “If you are trying to find a way to attack the Government for something that never happened, we might as well just make things up,” said Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, responding to a journalist’s question about whether a company from Albania had been selected to manage the parking lot at the Clinical Centre.

Who’s making things up here? His Minister of Health, Arben Taravari, said that the company “Gjoku” from Albania was the only one to apply for the tender. Who’s attacking the Government? Is Arben Taravari, the very minister who’s part of that government, attacking it? The Prime Minister also said that he understands the need for sensationalism. Who exactly needs sensationalism? Arben Taravari? Well, yes. It was certainly a sensational statement when he said that the price increase from 30 to 50 denars for one hour of parking at the Clinical Centre is reasonable, compared to other parking lots in Skopje, where shopping centres charge 60 denars, and some even go up to 100 or 150. It’s truly sensational when a Minister of Health, and a doctor no less, compares parking prices at the Clinical Centre to those at a shopping centre. As if cancer patients actually have a choice whether to park in front of a store or in front of Oncology.

Prime Minister Mickoski stated that the Government has yet to decide whether to sign a contract with the company from Albania that won the tender.

Minister Taravari also shared the information that it wasn’t profitable for other companies to apply for the tender, as he doesn’t believe “the Clinical Centre will remain there for more than seven, eight, or ten years.”

Wait a minute. Didn’t the director of the Health Fund, Sasho Klekovski, say just a month ago that the project to build a Clinical Centre would be put on hold due to our declining demographics and shrinking population? Or perhaps the parking lot at the Clinical Centre wasn’t even part of the government coalition agreement.

The announcement specifies that the company managing the parking lot will pay the state one percent of its annual revenues. There you go, the money from that one percent will be used to build the new Clinical Centre.

It’s an IPP kind of move – If it passes, it passes. That’s how decisions are made in a well-organised state.

2 Minister of Finance Gordana Dimitrieska-Kochoska still refuses to apologise for the insults she directed at SDSM MP Slavjanka Petrovska from the parliamentary rostrum on February 27, when instead of responding to a parliamentary question, she told Petrovska that she had no right to mention mothers and families in her questions, unlike herself, who is married and has two sons. The minister says: “Citizens should be patient, they should wait a little. Time will show who was right and who was wrong and why all this happened.”

What exactly will time show? That those who aren’t married and don’t have children aren’t allowed to speak?

What happened during the parliamentary questions session wasn’t an ideological clash between the government and the opposition. It wasn’t even a verbal clash, as the government and the media are trying to politely label the incident of discrimination based on marital status. After all, it wasn’t a petty fight between two neighbours at the grocery store checkout over the last can of peas. It’s simple. An MP asked a question, and the minister, instead of responding, told her that she had no right to ask it. In Parliament.

I repeat – what will time show? That ministers will forbid MPs from asking questions altogether? And that opposition MPs should be happy if the VMRO-DPMNE government limits itself to insults? That they won’t be physically kicked out of Parliament as in 2012, or have their heads bashed in like in 2017?

3 It’s forbidden to ask the government about the price of milk, it’s forbidden to ask about the government’s charter flight to Budapest, it’s forbidden to ask about the Bulgarian passports held by our ministers, it’s forbidden to ask about the English language certificates of high-ranking officials, it’s forbidden to ask about the asparagus in the Government’s kitchen, it’s forbidden to ask about the parking lot at the Clinical Centre… The Government is the only body that will decide who is allowed to ask and what they are allowed to ask. And the government will say only what it wants to hear.

They’re already intoxicated by the idea of cementing their hold on the government in the local elections. That’s the “new normal” Prime Minister Mickoski has been talking about since his return from the U.S., encouraged by Donald Trump’s victory and the “new normal” there. For VMRO-DPMNE, the new normal means restoring the old normal of the VMRO rule under Nikola Gruevski. Perhaps something even worse.

4 And when it comes to SDSM, it’s the same old story. The old normal SDSM. Their parliamentary group decided not to participate in the plenary session dedicated to International Women’s Day, March 8, as a sign of protest against the discrimination by Minister Dimitrieska-Kochoska and because VMRO-DPMNE kept quiet about the insults against women and their MP. Additionally, the female MPs of SDSM will not participate in the work of the Club of Women MPs and the Equal Opportunities Commission until the Minister of Finance resigns, or the Prime Minister dismisses her.

Oh my, the Prime Minister, the Minister, and the VMRO-DPMNE MPs must have been shaken by this original move from SDSM. The opposition MPs cleared the way for them. Now they can do whatever they want, without a care in the world.

The Minister insulted Parliament, and the SDSM MPs withdrew. They weren’t kicked out, but they simply abandoned their own home. They took the easy way out. That’s such an irresponsible attitude towards the voters who voted for them. What do they think voters had in mind when they voted for them?

Just like that, acting as if they were above it all and believing there was nothing more to debate, SDSM got angry and left the parliamentary bodies where they could speak their mind and fight. Where else will their voice be heard if not in Parliament? They seem to have forgotten that the last time they behaved like this, they ended up in opposition for 11 years and struggled to return to power.

5 The hope that the U.S., as a strategic partner, will help the Macedonian Government by making its European partners realise that they can no longer humiliate Macedonia with Bulgaria’s stupid demands is currently supported by the fact that the Prime Minister watched Trump’s inauguration from a ceremonial box in a sports hall in Washington. It’s safe to assume, trying to align with the new world order and “Trump’s new normal” and connecting to the Skopje-Belgrade-Budapest axis by playing on the emotions of Macedonian citizens, who feel betrayed and disappointed by the European Union, isn’t the result of an international strategy by the Macedonian Government, but rather a recipe for consolidating power at home.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his traditional congratulatory message on the occasion of Bulgaria’s national holiday, March 3, the day the Treaty of San Stefano was signed in 1878, mentioned the new nuclear reactors and the modernisation of the Bulgarian military.

Translated into financial terms, that means 14 billion dollars for the nuclear reactors at the Kozloduy power plant, under a contract with the American company Westinghouse and the South Korean company Hyundai, as well as 2.5 billion dollars for 16 F-16 fighter jets from the American company Lockheed Martin.

Since Trump’s affection is bought with money, the question: is what do we have to offer?

In his first address to Congress, Trump, listing several countries where American financial aid had been cut, joked and asked: Has anyone heard of Lesotho? Congressmen from his party applauded him and laughed at his witty remark about the small African country.

Lesotho has a population of two million, is landlocked, and there is a U.S. embassy in it. The country is poorer than Macedonia, but it’s rich in minerals, particularly diamonds, and has plenty of water. And not only that. Elon Musk met with the Prime Minister of Lesotho in September last year to discuss business. Yet, Trump hasn’t heard of Lesotho, and neither have the congressmen who applauded him.

Intoxicated by the “new normal,” let’s not wake up one day, hungover, to the question “Has anyone heard of North Macedonia?”

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski