1 I can’t believe the government is so incompetent that they can’t properly plan even a reconstruction of the Government. We thought they couldn’t plan the regular procurement of textbooks, forms for identity documents, registration plates and report cards, and it now turns out they couldn’t plan the dismissal of their own ministers. For a whole week they’ve been unable to get together to dismiss the ministers, and they’re yet to elect a new government. They let their Minister of Justice resign and not sign the 600 million euro Eurobond before he did that. Tupanchevski was their minister, not one from the opposition.
Let’s be real, which problem did Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski solve when he decided to take Alliance and dumped Alternative? This year these parties, another year others. Does he check which Albanian partner suits him better? Will they run a partnership business, or will they run the state? They blame the opposition for not helping them dismiss their ministers. As if they don’t know who they are dealing with. We all know that the VMRO-DPMNE MPs are active only when something needs to be blocked.
We’ve never had such a hopeless composition of MPs before. We haven’t seen them in the assembly hall for months, and in the meantime they’ve been buying apartments in Skopje, they’ve been lying about going back to their hometowns and have been charging travel expenses. They don’t hide the fact that they’re not ashamed and that they don’t care about the public interest.
However, Dimitar Kovachevski and Ali Ahmeti did the maths wrong – 64 minus the three of Alternative, plus the eight of Alliance, minus the three of the so-called Fiery group from DUI, minus one Pavle Trajanov, plus or minus Menduh Tachi and Skender Rexhepi as in an equation with two unknowns. Go and solve it if you can, considering that the President of the Assembly Talat Xhaferi is travelling to Slovenia at the same time the vote for the reconstruction of the government is taking place. Ali Ahmeti himself needs to show up at the assembly, since he only comes when they need to form a quorum.
And where are we, the citizens, in this guesstimate? In the EU we’re blackmailed by Bulgaria. At home we’re blackmailed by DUI and the other Albanian parties. We’re stuck between the incompetence of SDSM and the destructiveness of VMRO-DPMNE. Apasiev is threatening to shoot and hang people, and Mickoski is offering to save us.
Maybe things are not that bad. We can certainly do even worse.
2 Trying to lift our spirits, the government were quick to blow their own trumpets after the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) ruled as invalid the appeal of former officials Vladimir Taleski, Nikola Gruevski, Mile Janakieski, Gordana Jankulovska, Toni Jakimovski, Sasho Mijalkov, Toni Trajkovski and Edmond Temelko in connection with the pardons of former president Gjorge Ivanov for the SPO cases.
The judges looked at the appeals and said – it’s great you’ve come all the way to Strasbourg, but how about you go back home and seek justice there because you haven’t exhausted all the legal instruments in your courts. How exactly could all of that be interpreted as success of the government and as ecstatic joy that justice has won?
The same day justice won, Dragan Daravelski was free to go home, since for 20 years he didn’t know he was convicted. Justice won the same day when the Bulgarian clubs named after people connected to the fascist occupation of Macedonia were supposed to change their names because that’s what the law says, but they simply don’t care, and the Macedonian public starts a debate on the possible scenarios of what will happen if Bulgarians in Macedonia don’t obey the law. For instance, what would people in the EU do if someone didn’t obey the law? While Macedonian officials were rejoicing at the decision of the judges from Strasbourg, at the trial for the bus accident near Laskarci, four years after 16 passengers lost their life, the expert who was photographed on a stand of DUI didn’t show up at the trial because his blood pressure was too high. Perhaps he missed the therapy since the system of the Health Insurance Fund is still down.
Now, the trials on the cases of the failed Special Prosecutor’s Office will continue, which are based on the suspicions of crime discovered in the massive illegal wiretapping from the time of Nikola Gruevski. In his request for asylum in Hungary he referred to the pardon Ivanov granted him. The accused high-ranking officials of his government are sick and tired of paying lawyers and going through notebooks with lists of judges so they’d come up with all sorts of tricks on how to postpone trials, to keep them dragging on in the courts… After six years, new headaches for the judges, new costs for the defendants.
Where is the victory of justice here? Justice won when Strasbourg told them – your judiciary is not good, your judges are not efficient, and it turned out that even your lawyers aren’t very learned.
3 After all, why are we debating about some victories and defeats in Macedonia, which is now a member of NATO, at the begging of the third decade of the 21st century and the fourth decade as an independent country, when Ohrid has never been that inaccessible ever before. We’re not talking about some remote village on top of a mountain. We’re talking about the town of cultural and historical importance, the touristic centre of the country – the most beautiful place in our country. The 52-kilometre Chinese motorway still hasn’t been built and the people who threw public money at it haven’t been held accountable, so it could just be declared a monument to the epic incompetence of both the VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM governments, and to be perfectly honest, of DUI as well, because it has been a constant in the government since 2001 until now.
It’s the same story with Bitola. The Via Ignatia road was built in ancient times. Half of our folk music sings of Bitola, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, however in the present country which is a member of NATO and under the successful screening process of the EU, before we start the negotiations on the chapters, we got stuck at Pletvar. In the time we were under the Ottoman Empire, people went from Kochani to Thessaloniki by horse, but now it’s difficult to get from eastern Macedonia to Ohrid and Prespa by car. By bus – maybe there’s a way, but by train – there’s absolutely no way.
Why are we even talking about roads and railways? The capital doesn’t have a reliable and stable public transport. Why are talking about modern buses, when we don’t even have a post office. Mailmen delivering your mail – courier service. Even that is part of the calculations the damned parties are doing and their deal-making. Although we had an operating post office in good times and bad times, in the time of Muslim rule, in the time of Christian rule, in times of war and in Tito’s time, now in times of peace and during our European process we don’t have one.
So, we’re not talking about conquering Mars. We’re talking about basic civilizational benefits, in the third decade of the 21st century. For instance, to be able to receive a package, catch a bus and get to work on time, and for the doctor to be able to write you a prescription because his computer system is not down.
And when you shed light on these obvious facts on “the progress, reforms, economic policies and EU integrations” the government immediately accuses you of wanting to bring VMRO back. That you’re not on the side of progress. And that you’re anti-European.
They promised they’d bring the EU home. They’ve failed so they’re now using the EU as a weapon in their clash. They don’t care about good governance and European values. They only care about European money. And how to get their hands on it. However, considering they’re not capable of properly reconstructing the Government, I doubt they know how to do even that.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
