Reminders and warnings

Gjorgji Spasov

Probably very few people remember that Branko Crvenkovski congratulated Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in 2007 in his annual address to the Parliament as President of the country for “restoring hope” among the citizens. It was an attempt by the B.C. person, as VMRO-DPMNE liked to call him, for some kind of reconciliation and successful cohabitation with the Government in the name of successfully achieving the country’s national interests. But his stretched out hand did not mean anything to them, and Gruevski and his team, who, after taking power in 2006, waged wars for completely destroying SDSM as a political party through an alleged fight against corruption and crime “of the previous government” by completely isolating the opposition from the media and systematic public humiliation and disabling of its real political action.
When after the elections in 2011, Gruevski realized that SDSM, again headed by Branko Crvenkovski, is getting stronger, on December 24, 2012, that is the so-called “Black Monday”, he instructed the most humiliating throwing out of opposition MPs and journalists from the Parliament hall, and Branko Crvenkovski, who protested in front of the Parliament, was publicly accused of organizing a “coup against the legally elected government in Macedonia”.
Eleven years during Gruevski’s regime, he and his disgraced MPs and ministers not only raised crime and corruption at the level of a system of robbery of their own country disguised as patriotism, but also ordered lustration of innocent people, alive as well as deceased, they raised hate speech against the opposition and independent thinkers to the highest level, the public defamation of the opponents with fictitious works was just a normal everyday thing, they ordered lustration and arrests, used the secret services for the most dirty operations, while publicly selling us some kind of love for the motherland, honesty and ability.
During this regime, we lost all hope that anything could change in Macedonia.
It was with Zoran Zaev’s project “The Truth About Macedonia”, which began in February 2015 that the public unmasking of the fake patriotism of all the key actors of that regime has finally started. Citizens, as well as the international public, had the opportunity to see not only the level of greed and involvement in corruption of numerous actors from that government, but also to perceive the sadism of such a power against its “political rivals” and “communards”, who not only had their elections stolen, but were also systematically wiretapped, robbed, terrorized, and arrested in a number of rigged cases.
Under pressure from public anger and revolt, the international community has forced Gruevski’s consent to establish the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the crimes and abuses that have been heard by wiretapped talks and hold early parliamentary elections.
Gruevski’s crime, which included many of the current parliamentary group and the current leadership of VMRO-DPMNE, could not reconcile even with the change of power or to allow the SPO freedom to continue its work. We have already forgotten that all their installations in the Parliament, in the executive branch, in the judiciary, even in the underworld, have been integrated into preventing the change of power and disabling the work of the SPO. On April 27, they tried with a classic case of terror and murders attempts against the future Prime Minister to prevent the election of a new Parliament Speaker and the formation of a new government.
President Gjorge Ivanov helped them through all of this the best way he can.
The Council for Public Prosecutors led by Anevski, the courts and their presidents such as Vladimir Panchevski in Skopje and Jovo Vangelovski, Prosecutor Zvrlevski, who didn’t even consider resigning, and the Republican Judicial Council, did everything to obstruct, slow down and sabotage the work of the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office, and justice in general.
And while Zoran Zaev’s Government concentrated all its energy on Macedonia’s new foreign politics, the first two to escape justice, with the help of the courts, were Goran Grujovski and Nikola Boshkovski, who were main actors in the illegal wiretapping and the destruction of the wiretapping equipment, and a little later, just one day before going to serve his prison sentence, the mastermind and instigator of all abuses and crimes, Nikola Gruevski, fled across the border and out of the country.
Gruevski’s criminal gang, scattered across all institutions and the Parliament, did everything in its power to disable the implementation of the government’s key project of overcoming disputes with neighbors, which were a condition for the country’s admission to NATO and the unblocking process for launching EU membership talks. Zaev’s Government decided to give priority to the process of the country’s integration before seeking justice and announced amnesty for participants in the attack on April 27 in Parliament, in order to achieve the required two-thirds majority in Parliament for amendments in the Constitution.
Zaev succeeded in this complicated engineering to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority to change the Constitution. In this process, he clearly set the political priorities of his government, but maybe a little and naively believed that in Macedonia, along with the process of reconciliation with neighbors and the country’s integration into NATO and the EU, the process of internal political reconciliation with the opposition and internal integration around the commonly declared strategic goals of the country. In his attempt, he acted calmly, with Christian serenity, respecting the presumption of innocence and lowering detentions to a minimum, accepted leadership TV duels with Mickoski, organized leadership meetings and further naively believed and believed in the interest of the country and receiving a date for the start of negotiations with the EU, the criminalized VMRO-DPMNE led by Mickoski will agree to support a new law on public prosecution, a population census and changes to the Electoral Code, which requires two-thirds majority.
Unfortunately, it has long been clear that Mickoski and the old-new leadership of VMRO-DPMNE with their “out-of-borders committee” in Budapest require only the removal of this power and fierce political vengeance. And nothing more.
They have largely succeeded in turning Macedonia from a captive state into a blocked state, at least in the sphere of justice. Each of their successes in the field of hindering the government is presented as the government’s failure to solve problems. Any plea for cooperation is presented as a weakness and powerlessness of the government. The most morally mature MPs from that party, such as Antonio Miloshoski and the like, hold moral “speeches” and demand the resignations of MPs from the government for moral reasons.
Freedom of the media was used to freely make up fake news, through multiple news portals that are still financed from offshore destinations, for creating affairs and classic assassinations on the character of some of the holders of power. The acquitted Dragan Pavlovic-Latas, Milenko Nedelkovski and many others are again the main producers of lies, hatred and scandals. The public seems to have forgotten and forgiven, and now these people are offering themselves again as some kind of saviors, people even more patriotic since the time of the great patriotic robbery, who feel morally superior because they manage to cheat justice.
And SDSM still considers and treats those who block the functioning of the system as some kind of constructive political corrective of the government.
It seems that SDSM is not aware that the possible return of Gruevski’s gang to power in Macedonia will not be an ordinary change of government like it happened in Greece. It will be a defeat of the forces that fought for more freedom, democracy, justice and peace with our neighbors. It will endanger all the benefits of the changes that have been made with great difficulty, will mean a triumph of injustice over justice. The party and its coalition partners will have to take care of the disappointed and dissatisfied citizens who took part in the heroic change of power in 2016 in the parliamentary and 2017 local elections.
The coalition government of SDSM and DUI does not have to hurry with any early elections, which would further shorten their mandate. In Macedonia, under pressure of many events and affairs, there is a crisis of confidence not just in the government, but also in the media, as well as in the opposition. Now is the time to work hard to correct the damage from that crisis of trust in the institutions through their defense of fake news and accusations and through their more effective action.
For such crisis periods, Macedonia would be well received by government advisors such as Peter Vanhoutte, Reinhard Priebe, Erwan Fouéré, who have felt VMRO-DPMNE’s methods of acting on their own skin, and who contributed to the occurrence of democratic changes in the country, and not hire anonymous figures. Macedonia and the Government need serious authorities for advisers who can help in dealing with the political crisis.
The opposition must be prevented from blocking institutions and spreading fear and political hysteria in the country. The government has very little time until the end of next year to demonstrate its ability to rule and to tackle internal challenges.