Imer Selmani destroyed the idea of a consensual President

Robert Nesimi

In theory the concept of a consensual President is a good idea. By all democratic norms and traditions, and our Constitution, laws and regulations, the President of the country should be a president of all citizens equally, no matter their nationality, faith, gender, political ideology or any other characteristics. In reality this level of representation has never been achieved in Macedonia, while the most drastically biased President obviously was the outgoing President Gjorge Ivanov. Still this doesn’t mean that we should give up and stop striving for such a President.

Since the President should represent all citizens equally, the theory of a “consensual President” says that he should be elected with a majority of votes from each subgroup. Essentially it is desirable that he be supported by a majority of each and all nationalities, faiths, genders and so on. But the dominant theme of the political discourse in Macedonia, in the sense of political organization by group, certainly was and remains the ethnic identity. And that is why the concept of a consensual President is reduced to a President elected by a majority of Macedonians and Albanians, at least according to DUI which first came up with this idea.

And this is when the concept of a consensual President has to face reality. It is more than obvious that we cannot speak of a consensual President in a system where the President is elected directly by voters. In this type of system it is first of all impossible to conclude whether someone got a majority of votes of Macedonians, Albanians, Turks etc. And even if this was possible, it is almost impossible for any candidate to win a majority of each subgroup. It is almost certain that there will be some group that will vote differently from others, and at that moment claim that the elected President is not consensual, does not represent them and won’t be someone who represents all citizens equally.

DUI’s solution to this dilemma basically is to entirely suspend the presidential elections. According to them the consensual President should be decided by the biggest parties of Macedonians and Albanians, defined by the number of MPs in Parliament. In other words the benchmark for presidential elections should be the results of parliamentary elections, no matter the will of voters of who should be their President.

This ridiculous manner of electing a President was totally destroyed by the candidate Imer Selmani in the presidential elections of 2009. We should thus review the political situation of that time, as the best illustration of why the concept of a consensual President is not feasible, and even undesirable in practice.

Presidential elections in 2009 were held less than a year after the parliamentary elections of 2008. In those elections VMRO and DUI scored big victories in the Macedonian and Albanian political blocs. They went on to form a governing coalition that had the support of more than 80 MPs, i.e. more than a two-thirds majority. By all accounts they scored absolute victories, and the support of both Macedonians and Albanians was unequivocally on their side.

By DUI’s logic for a consensual President, that would mean that the President would have been someone agreed upon between VMRO and DUI. This concept however was not actual at that time, so each party came out with their candidates. In total there were seven candidates from seven different parties. Local elections were also held on the same day as presidential elections.

The winner of the first round was Gjorge Ivanov of VMRO, which once again confirmed the domination of VMRO in the Macedonian bloc. But the results in the Albanian bloc held a big surprise. Although DUI won the parliamentary elections in 2008 and the local elections held on the same day, the candidate Imer Selmani literally overran DUI’s candidate Agron Buxhaku. He got around 150.000 votes, and actually managed to get close to entering the second round. DUI’s Buxhaku got only 70.000 votes. Selmani thus handily beat DUI and destroyed the concept of a consensual President. He proved that parliamentary elections can never be a benchmark for presidential ones, and that the final decision ultimately rests with the voters. No matter how they voted in parliamentary elections, they showed that they would like to keep their voice for presidential elections. In 2009, by voting for Imer Selmani, they showed that they know how to distinguish between parliamentary and presidential elections, between the Government and the Presidency. And that is the best signal that the election of a President cannot be a matter of a prearranged contract between political parties, but the result of the will of voters expressed in elections. The President should not be a pawn of Government, but really a President of all citizens.

Compared to 2009 the concept of a consensual President is even more unfeasible now. It is important to note that SDSM did not get a majority of votes in the last elections. DUI fared even worse, winning only about 35% of the votes of Albanians. It is thus insincere for SDSM to claim to speak in the name of a majority of Macedonians, and even less so for DUI in the name of Albanians.

For these reasons any agreement for a common candidate between the coalition partners should be read as a common political agreement between political parties to enter elections together. In no case can it be a claim for a consensual President of all citizens, since these parties do not represent a majority of any group, whether civil or ethnic. And even if they had such majorities, the last word still belongs to the voters, who may again decide to support a third candidate, as they did in 2009 by voting for Imer Selmani.