{"id":137866,"date":"2025-10-10T22:11:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goranmihajlovski.com\/?p=137866"},"modified":"2025-10-12T22:12:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T20:12:40","slug":"pens-and-lighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goranmihajlovski.com\/en\/i-want-to-say\/pens-and-lighters\/","title":{"rendered":"PENS AND LIGHTERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

1<\/span> Do political parties underestimate voters that much, or do voters underestimate themselves when, during election campaigns, they fall for T-shirts, caps, and notebooks handed out in some bags by ministers, high-ranking officials of the ruling party, and opposition representatives alike?<\/p>\n

Those gifts were bought with our money, weren\u2019t they? That\u2019s money from the state budget the parties receive for elections, funds we\u2019ve provided for them through our taxes and contributions. In other words, they\u2019re giving us gifts we\u2019ve bought ourselves. We paid for them, and probably overpaid. Who knows how much political profit someone\u2019s made by stuffing those bags with pens and lighters?<\/p>\n

Independent candidate for mayor of Bitola, Gabriela Ilievska, says that \u201cthey can\u2019t keep fooling us with pens and lighters.\u201d<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t say. I\u2019d call it a case of double self-deception. The political parties lie that they\u2019re giving us something. And when we receive the bag of trifles, we lie to ourselves that we\u2019ve actually taken something. If nothing else, at least we\u2019ll add to our collection of pens from previous elections.<\/p>\n

Still, I think that by 2025 citizens are well aware the parties are lying to them. Yet that doesn\u2019t stop them from accepting their gifts. It\u2019s an \u201canything will do\u201d sort of situation. Since you haven\u2019t filled the potholes on my street and haven\u2019t collected my rubbish, at least you\u2019ve bought me a pen and a notebook with my own money.<\/p>\n

The party-branded bag is the only tangible, concrete thing we\u2019ll get in these elections for our money.<\/p>\n

2<\/span> Carried away by the pens and lighters, we have forgotten what these same mayors promised us back in 2021 and what their leaders promised only fifteen months ago. We voted just last year, didn\u2019t we? Do they really have anything new to say? They\u2019ve recorded a new promo video? They\u2019ve printed a new billboard?<\/p>\n

Have they even finished the projects they promised us four years ago, that they\u2019re already promising new ones?<\/p>\n

For example, in the last 30 years we\u2019ve had a multi-party system, has there ever been a candidate for mayor of Skopje who hasn\u2019t promised to restore the splendour of Skopje\u2019s Old Bazaar? And with every election, the Bazaar not only loses its splendour but also its authenticity. At this point, I\u2019m convinced that come 2029, the candidates for mayor of Skopje will still be promising to restore the splendour of the Old Bazaar.<\/p>\n

Election campaigns feel as if parties are on autopilot. Fill the buses, take the same people for a trip, hand out flags to wave and applaud, hand out sandwiches and pens, and promise parks, kindergartens, benches, swimming pools, bike lanes\u2026 There isn\u2019t even space left to build all the parks they\u2019ve promised. They promised them at the last elections too, but in the meantime, blocks of flats have sprung up instead. They promised kindergartens as well, but in the meantime the parents of those unborn children have moved abroad.<\/p>\n

Just try listening to what they\u2019re promising this time, but don\u2019t look at who\u2019s speaking. It will seem like you\u2019re listening to one long advert from the same party.<\/p>\n

How is it that, when their election promises differ only in nuance, so much hatred has erupted? We\u2019re heading to local elections, yet they\u2019re talking in terms of life and death, shooting at each other in the streets, fighting in parking lots, and one candidate for councillor in Vinica, from the same coalition list, even had his head smashed in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s absolutely unbelievable how much they hate each other during the pre-election period, only to make up the moment they sit together in the municipal councils. As soon as they start sharing the election spoils, they forget everything they\u2019d promised for the common good.<\/p>\n

3<\/span> Brain cancer patients wait for two months for their MRI results at the state Radiology Clinic.<\/p>\n

Oncology patients sometimes receive therapy, and then next moment they don\u2019t. The same sad stories repeat themselves: there\u2019s medicine, then there isn\u2019t, the tender\u2019s been announced, then tender hasn\u2019t been finalised, the deadline for complaints is running, there\u2019s a replacement, there isn\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n

Why is everything still the same? Didn\u2019t they promise changes? Where are the changes? We thought that when they promised changes, they actually knew how to deliver them. 15 months have passed. These elections will pass too. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski says that once the results of the local elections are in, he may consider calling early Parliamentary elections. And you know what that means, more pens, more notebooks, T-shirts, caps, and tens of millions of euros wasted on empty words. On top of that, even more time wasted, instead of at least trying to mend this shattered country.<\/p>\n

Let ministers and the directors of public institutions take a walk through the hospitals. But not among doctors who applaud some mayoral candidate during working hours for having a retaining wall behind the Clinical Centre repaired, but among the patients waiting in the corridors. Let them ask whether they feel like getting a pen and a lighter. Instead of bags, let them hand out vouchers with appointment times.<\/p>\n

4<\/span> Let\u2019s make a bet right now: Will Danela Arsovska turn up for the inauguration when the new mayor of Skopje is elected?<\/p>\n

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Do political parties underestimate voters that much, or do voters underestimate themselves when, during election campaigns, they fall for T-shirts, caps, and notebooks handed out in some bags by ministers, high-ranking officials of the ruling party, and opposition representatives alike? Those gifts were bought with our money, weren\u2019t they? 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