As an introduction

Aleksandar Nikolovski

Dear readers, allow me to thank the editorial office of “Nezavisen/Independent” for the opportunity to share my opinion every other Wednesday on the pages of this newspaper, which I believe with its concept and team will open new pages in Macedonian journalism. Enriching the media world, especially in the print media, this is very important and I want to congratulate everyone who is involved in this project. It is honorable to say that the agreement fell before my election as vice-president of VMRO-DPMNE, this election happened in the meantime, so I cannot help but turn to party policies and developments in the country, but at times I will also want to write a personal opinion on certain topics beyond the daily events.

As the public witnessed, VMRO DPMNE has made major personnel changes, while political and conceptual changes are planned in the near future. We are starting a journey that will not be either short or easy, but it is a path that will open the party’s perspectives for the next 15 to 20 years, clearly profiling it as a modern center-right party. That’s what Macedonia needs. The parties in the country are still stuck in the concepts and policies of the nineties. In addition to it, it is bad for them to pull Macedonia backwards. That’s how it will be now. The democratization of the party and the abandonment of certain bad practices, I hope, will signal for the other parties to do the same. We are the first major party to make democratic changes in the statute. For this we use the experiences of sister-parties from Europe that are part of the European People’s Party. We are moving towards a much larger role of members, local and municipal committees that are the heart of the party.

VMRO-DPMNE clearly saw its good sides, and its errors. I’ll start with the errors – in the last few years there have been two types of errors – political and organizational. Regarding the political, I think that we had to find better answers to the crisis that lasted several years, somehow the party entered into the whole process. The party also wandered ideologically for a long time, without a clear concept and clear policies, there were no clear views, which were often changed. It left a bad image among the people and was part of the reasons for the defeat in the local elections. Organizationally, VMRO-DPMNE has long had the most powerful party structure, but it was depreciated and did not change enough often to be vital all the time. Sometimes poor quality combined with certain personal relationships prevailed over quality and work. This is, in my opinion, the key errors for which we need to find answers.

Regarding the good, there were many good and correct moves in the economic area, in the part of the protection of national issues, the relationship with the smaller ethnic communities, and so on. It needs to be upgraded and continued. VMRO DPMNE has set standards that no government can follow. Standards which have become a landmark for many policies and practices. The people have become accustomed to them and are demanding them from this government, and they will continue to demand them from the next government as well.

In the end, both our goal and the goal of every well-intentioned party is Macedonia to move forward, I hope all of them will contribute to it. The more smiling faces should be the goal. I wish us all good luck.