Gruevski speaks of decency and democracy

Erol Rizaov

Nikola Gruevski, the longest-running Macedonian Prime Minister, is going through a difficult time in his life. He speaks of decency in court almost every day, and he repeats his speech about freedom and democracy in the evenings, in front of the remaining party members on the blocked streets in Skopje and before the “Sutka” penitentiary. Right before his resignation from the party and politics, his most used words “decency and democracy”, were the least used words while he was the undisputed ruler of Macedonia. Whenever Gruevski utters these words, his eyes are directed to the ground. He feels uncomfortable. Just like I, and thousands of citizens, get the urge to hurl whenever we hear him as being the one shouting: “Catch the thief!” and telling us about junta, regimes, dictatorships… And wishing us a Happy New 1949.
Recently I decided that, after Gruevski’s departure from politics, I would stop burdening myself with his actions and statements, even though the ramifications from the “Gruevism” will be felt for a very long time. Finally, criticizing a fallen, powerless and lonely politician, who announced his departure from the only remaining function he had left, were never a challenge to me. Now, the main topic for me would be research for a possible danger of shifting “Gruevism” with “Zaevism” or some other “ism”, but, to be honest, it’s highly unlikely. That would be the most tragic direction after all that happened in the past two years. I think that installing a regime is no longer possible in Macedonia, which does not mean that the authorities should be spared from criticism. On the contrary, after rebuilding the democratic processes and liberating the institutions of the system, after freeing themselves from fear, the cruelty of criticism of many minor errors of the new authorities will be much stronger. And it should to be. Just like any other government and authority in the most democratic countries is not spared from criticism, I hope this would be the case with Macedonia as well, taking example from Western European parliamentary democracies. Nowhere in the world does the government publish their own exploitation of power to the public. It needs to be dug out and published by the media. I find that the Public Prosecutor’s Offices in Macedonia and the entire justice system are encouraged and willing to do their job professionally and impartially, and it will be much more likely that the journalistic discoveries, the announcements of the so-called “whistleblowers”, in general the normal functioning of the rule of law. The political will for the rule of law has been present in the past year, which is already visible.

Then, why is Gruevski still the most present person in the media, even though he is resigning, and unauthorized, yet he is constantly in the center of attention. Even more than the errors and successes of the new government. Because Gruevski knows how to utter such nonsense that no one can stay indifferent. For instance, I was listening his statement after his hearing about the major corruption affair with Chinese loans for the construction of highway sections. Gruevski, without batting an eye, said that SDSM did the same things. Try and ignore this! They acted the same way, but he wasn’t very specific, did they steal as much as SDSM, or were decent as much. Of course Gruevski is not interested that lies are very quickly revealed, he still thinks like he does when he is campaigning. His comparison of equal decency between SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE, that the construction of the “Kozjak” power plant and the highway sections Kicevo-Ohrid and Milanovci-Stip are both done with the help of the same investor, the Republic of China, and that the loans were taken with the same decision by the Parliament, is really a desperate defense. Even to the citizens that are ignorant when it comes to tenders and have no knowledge of the corruption games and manipulation of laws. First of all, Gruevski and his mnisters janakievski and Pesevski are not charged with various agreements and annexes, but with corruption, bribery, grants and other similar actions that were damaging to the country. In the indictment there are also severe abuse of powers. It is a damage of 155 million euros, money from the state treasury, money that belong to the citizens of Macedonia. This is the indictment, not the loans and “Kozjak”. By the way, there were several prison sentences for “Kozjak”. Now, when all this is heard by Gruevski, he starts talking about persecution, political fight, endangered democracy, and that it is worse now than it was in 1949. After all this, how can you be indifferent and not write about Gruevski and his tragicomic attempts to sell decency and democracy and make us all seem incompetent.