VMRO should act as if they welcome Stoltenberg’s visit
Slobodanka Jovanovska
On Thursday, the NATO Secretary General will visit Macedonia for the first time and address the Macedonian Parliament. What he might face is a half-empty hall and the absence of the main opposition party, a situation that cannot be interpreted differently, but as proof that Macedonia is still a non-functional state, and that the second most powerful political force in the country really doesn’t care about the membership in the Alliance. That would be very surprising to anyone, if there weren’t for the stories of the allegedly reformed VMRO-DPMNE, and that it will re-examine and correct its policies that turned the citizens against it in the last elections in the country. Even if VMRO-DPMNE does not want Macedonia to become a member of the Alliance, considering the huge percentage of citizens who want this and from pure political logic, the party should send a nice welcoming message to Stoltenberg.
If the party persists in the boycott, it will prove that it is a party with a fundamental error because it believes that it is patriotic, and about all the key decisions about the country this party either hides, boycotts or obstructs.
It is a fact that in all the terms of this Parliament, so far there have been boycotts of one or the other party. It is also a fact that before all the important decisions about Macedonia, there were political incidents or obstructions that made two decades of torment of our European integration.
Now that Europe is resolving the strategic future of the countries of the European tail, the lagging behind Macedonia from this phase will mean that it will no longer be on the tail, that it has nowhere to go and will become a special case. Therefore, boycotting the visit of the Secretary General and the boycott of parliament in general is a luxury that can only be allowed by a non-patriotic, non-state, irresponsible, blatant, selfish and political blind party if it is a party at all, and not a profiteering company. And at the new state leadership in VMRO, however new and inexperienced in the conduct of politics, it is certain that what is happening now in parliament is not a state, that the reforms do not have a guarantee, that the alliance is not a humanitarian organization that will receive countries simply because they want to be in it, and that what makes it as an opposition is a classic obstruction that goes against the interests of the nation – and that is not a problem for NATO, but for Macedonia.
Although the new leadership of VMRO-DPMNE does not have much work experience – experience that can only be counted in days – it has already sent some messages that will define its further role and future. The first message was that it remains a non-democratic party, because in this way the election of the party’s head was made. The second is that the efforts for internal reform are only a facade and ‘for show’, because the Executive Committee has selected new staff, but one that is strongly supported by the old leadership. The entire country of Macedonia awaits the third message, and it is whether there will be a change in the destructive policy that has led this party to its own country, or will VMRO miss this opportunity to correct the impression? It is quite enough just to remind ourselves that during its first reign, this party managed to bring Macedonia on the verge of an interethnic war, and during the second ten-year rule of nationalism, it destroyed our European integration, and by wiretapping, corruption and devaluation of the judicial system almost dismantled Macedonia as a state. And instead of reconsidering the situation, to determine the mistakes and to ask what its role is, at the moment and whenever, it implements a pathetic boycott by demanding those who were ruined and beaten in its interest to be declared innocent and immune to a trial, because otherwise Macedonia will pay the price.
The amnesty that VMRO demands for the detained for the events on April 27, in order to end the boycott of parliament, is only a political legitimation of it before the world – that this party is still not mature enough for the role it has and the support it receives from the citizens of Macedonia. That, considering the path it took, it will be wiped out of the Macedonian future, but unfortunately it will do the same with our own future as well.