Why I’m voting for Pendarovski

Erol Rizaov

My readers know that I will vote for Stevo Pendarovski, that is, against any chance, or even the slightest danger to continue hindering and prolonging North Macedonia’s European perspectives, democratization and faster development of the country, and a better life of quality for our future generations. I have spent over 30 of 43 years in this profession, regularly and persistently supporting the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of both Yugoslavia and North Macedonia. By electing Stevo Pendarovski, the contemporaries have a historic chance, but also an obligation, to continue and complete the most significant job for the future of their country. And that job is for North Macedonia to achieve its strategic goals and to save itself from poverty, backwardness, divisions, bloodshed and disappearance.

The countries of Southeast Europe and especially the Balkans are condemned to disintegration, emigration and mass migration if they do not become EU member states. This is nothing new, any particularity of the distant past. It is happening now in the 21st century, as it happened in previous centuries. It has been noted by several world scientists whose facts, estimates and warnings leave no room for dilemmas. The proof of the disappearance of states and of the divisions in recent history is Yugoslavia, which, if it became a member of the EU and NATO, offered solutions and express European perspectives with the democratization of society and a new confederate arrangement, without the hegemony of a federal republic, to overcome the historically spent model – Yugoslavia today would have been in the first place, far above the European average ahead of all new members from Central and Eastern Europe. Macedonia came out of that infernal kettle, the only state without casualties thanks to Kiro Gligorov, the wise president of the country, a person who was a participant and continuity from ASNOM to independence, and who accepted the new reality to build his own independent democratic country. His European commitment was clearly announced before his election as president and prior to the proclamation of an independent Republic of Macedonia, and which was in full accordance with the then-resolutions of both the citizens and the political leadership.

After ten years of discontinuity, which still lasts after the fall of Nikola Gruevski’s regime, with the strong opposition of the new leadership of VMRO-DPMNE to the ideas and commitments of the first president of independent Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, and all strategic and development plans and programs, decisions of the Parliament, all ratified agreements with neighbors and with Brussels, in Stevo Pendarovski I recognize a person who will overcome the blockades and personal vanities. By taking the post of President of the State by Pendarovski, ends the policy that VMRO-DPMNE the same day, practiced for 11 years through the strictly party-appointed President Gjorge Ivanov, whose decisions were conducted by the now opposition party VMRO-DPMNE. I am sure that the first job after the new president’s oath would be signing all laws that have been adopted twice in the Assembly in accordance with the Constitution.

There are several strong reasons for supporting Stevo Pendarovski in the second election round. First, in addition to confirming and proving his strong commitment to North Macedonia’s membership in NATO and the EU, I know that he is a democrat and legalist, and he will be dedicated to the position, strictly adhering to his constitutional authorities. Pendarovski will not be a party president and will show this with his critical views publicly voiced to the mistakes of the government.

This individual from Avtokomanda is honest, his political career is impeccable and is an urban type of man with European physique and style, completely determined for good interethnic relations and coexistence. I am convinced that at his public appearances, he will mark all the wrong policies affecting the citizens regardless of their political, religious and national affiliation. Pendarovski will be great in representing North Macedonia both at home and abroad because he worked in the cabinet of two previous presidents who were respected in the international political community.

He will expressly overcome Gjorge Ivanov’s isolation and will be accepted by the most important and influential leaders in the world, but what is especially important is that he will be well received by the country’s closest neighbors because his positions are already well known to them. If he loses the election in a fair competition he will congratulate the winner and acknowledge the defeat.

However, the strongest motive for giving your vote to Stevo Pendarovski is the necessity for VMRO-DPMNE to be defeated in these elections. The old-new leadership is in a hurry to conquer the government through Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, and bring back the criminogenic party to the game. From the first day after the shift of power, the opposition has been plotting early general elections. After 11 years of uncontrolled governance, in just two years it has become quite uncomfortable for VMRO-DPMNE in opposition.
The opposition bread turned out to be quite bitter. They want to come back to power without paying for their sins, without distancing themselves from their scoundrels, without apologizing to the citizens of the great misdeeds they have committed. At the beginning of the pre-election campaign, I felt sorry for Professor Siljanovska-Davkova, who accepted such a role – to be VMRO-DPMNE’s presidential candidate after all tyranny and looting that Gruevski and his family did.

But as the election contest began, it became clear why the professor entered such a role, riding the black wave, which does not really suit her. The first thing that she did in the name of the rule of law was contesting the Prespa Agreement, and slammed the open door to Europe, even though everyone knows that without that political compromise we will not move from the Balkan moor. Then, without the need for political points, she contested the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which is the foundation of the inter-ethnic stability of the state. She challenged the Law on the Use of Languages, believing it would cause praise among the Macedonian population. She also found serious flaws in the friendship treaty with Bulgaria.

She never stopped repeating the maxim of the rule of law and justice for Macedonia. But she did not once say who she was referring to with her imaginary theoretical optional law. Does this mean that all who have violated the law, and who have hundreds of opportunities to prolong the trials and who have become wealthy as kings with the money of the citizens should go to prison or be set free. Does Siljanovska-Davkova recognize such scoundrels at the top of the previous one-decade rule, or does she see it only in the present government. Whether the incursion in the Assembly on April 27 is a patriotic act that should be awarded with medals of courage, or a bloody coup attempt. She did not say anything about it. She denounced the selective amnesty, but did not say about the responsibility of the organizers of this act to violently impede the Constitution of the Assembly. She did not say a word of condemnation of the abolition, and later canceled abolition, granted by Gjorge Ivanov.

The fact that Siljanovska does not know who are citizens of Kavadarci, who are citizens of Negotino, where her mother-in-law comes from – whether she is from Kocani, Kichevo or from Skopje, I don’t really care that much. This is quite usual for a distracted university professor, especially at party rallies. But selling us a centuries-old democratic evolution two weeks later, accepting the Prespa Agreement as a reality, that the friendship treaty with Bulgaria is practically a masterpiece, that the Ohrid Framework Agreement is a constitutional category, that stable interethnic relations are her ideal, she should tell these stories to her students. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, along with the leadership of VMRO-DPMNE determined by Nikola Gruevski, as guards of his throne, are on the wrong side of history. They will therefore be defeated, in order to save North Macedonia. There is no other way.