Will Zaev’s Government manage to complete its entire term?
It is quite certain that 2020 will be a year of elections, but these days the uncertainty again increases whether the elections for the “jubilee” tenth parliamentary composition will be the first regular elections in more than a decade, or they will be early and held several months earlier. Unlike before, when holding early elections was a topic that the ruling DUI regularly rejected, now this party threw the opportunity for holding them earlier, after the opposition again demanded resignation from Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, this time because of his phone conversations with the fake Poroshenko and Stoltenberg.
VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski again demanded extraordinary elections over the weekend, as he said, as a solution to what is happening in the country.
– I call for reason, to sit down, to call the parliamentary groups and to organize early parliamentary elections. Citizens should decide whether these policies will receive support or a new generation of politicians will come, said Mickoski in an interview with Alsat M, not excluding the possibility of peaceful protests of the opposition.
Mickoski says that VMRO-DPMNE is in constant communication with parties from the Albanian political bloc, and that he personally communicates with the leader of DUI Ali Ahmeti.
Estimates in political circles are that El Cheka’s “bombs” are probably one of the reasons why the DUI begins to look more favorably at possible extraordinary elections, because the positions of the party could further and permanently weaken until the election deadline in a regular term, ie autumn next year. Therefore, in the past few days MP Artan Grubi did not rule out the option for holding elections a few months earlier, in the second half of May or June, 2020. However, he said that this option should also be discussed with other parliamentary parties, since a minimum of 61 votes should be provided for dissolution of parliament.
On the other hand, the closure of the issues now cited as an obstacle to holding early elections this year is considered a possible motive for the ruling composition to hold elections in spring 2020, that is, not wait until autumn. One of the reasons why extraordinary elections are almost considered a mission impossible by the end of this year is that this year, that is, last spring, regular presidential elections were held, therefore two elections in just a few months would be too much.
Therefore, the expected membership in NATO by the end of the year and the possible start date of accession negotiations with the European Union may be the reason for the ruling parties to try to validate these foreign policy achievements by going to the voting polls in the first half instead of the end of 2020.
The Prime Minister and leader of SDSM, for the time being, at least declaratively, advocates elections in their regular term. However, immediately after the presidential elections ended May 5th of this year and barely met the expectations for voter turnout, unofficially broke the news of an alleged principle agreement between the ruling parties and the opposition for early parliamentary elections in March. Even 15th and 22nd March were mentioned as possible terms for holding the elections, which would mean the formation of a technical government immediately after the formalization of the membership of North Macedonia in NATO and the dissolution of parliament in the beginning of next year.
However, the Social Democrats for the moment give out the impression that they are not in a hurry to put their policies on the election test because of the fact that in the period after the presidential elections they had to defend themselves after several new scandals that overshadowed the so-called “Sweep”, which, in turn, at first achieved the desired mobilizing effect in the second round of the presidential elections. Social Democrats say that they as a party remain committed to reforms and state priorities, in the period when the country is ahead of full membership in NATO and the start of accession talks with the EU, and also a population census needs to be conducted.
Calls for early elections in SDSM are considered as a marketing trick by VMRO-DPMNE, which requires elections in order not to receive them. For the first post-election polls that show the initial advantage of the opposition, the ruling coalition estimates that it is not a trend, but an immediate situation that is expected to be corrected in their favor in the coming period, especially considering that Prime Minister Zaev remains significant an advantage over all other politicians on the rating lists.
If the next parliamentary elections are to be scheduled, due to the political circumstances from the beginning of 2017, Zaev’s government would not have one completed term, that is, the current parliamentary group would not be able to finish the 4-year term. Due to obstructions from the current opposition and former President Gjorge Ivanov, the SDSM and DUI government was formed half a year after the constitution of the ninth parliamentary composition. When it comes to this, the return of the concept of the so-called Przhino government, at the request of the opposition, it is clear that the beginning of September 2020 is the last possible deadline for Zaev to remain at the Government’s helm, before handing over the helm of a technical prime minister from the ranks of SDSM whose staff will have to give up the ministerial positions in the ministries of labor and social politics and in the interior, so that 100 days before the elections, ministers from VMRO-DPMNE can take over.
While there are whispers about possible early elections:
The election reform is standing still
The chances are that the next parliamentary elections will be held under the old electoral rules, given that the long-announced electoral reform has been status quo for more than a year. Among the parliamentary parties, primarily SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE, there was an agreement on a new concept for the composition of the SEC, as well as a re-examination of the current proportional model with six electoral regions for parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, there is no change of stance on these issues. The Ministry of Justice says that one version of the draft amendments to the Election Code was submitted to the political parties last year, but has not yet received a response from VMRO-DPMNE. A new version of the amendments to the Electoral Code, as they say, would be prepared after the recommendations of the OSCE-ODIHR from the observation of the recent presidential elections are received.
Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said over the weekend that new amendments to the Electoral Code are needed to incorporate all OSCE-ODIHR recommendations. The Swiss Embassy, he said, provided a grant of 11 million euros for a ten-year period, primarily for the adoption of a new Electoral Code.
– We need to sit down and implement this, because both I and Hristijan Mickoski, as well as everyone else, said that we will do it after the presidential elections, because there are no elections for a year and a half until the regular parliamentary elections, so we need to sit down to resolve this issue. We find the option of a one constituency acceptable, as well as open lists, everything that will mean democratization of the election processes – said Zaev.
The initial agreement between VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM was to establish the SEC as an administrative body in which the parties would delegate their observers only before the elections, without voting rights. But while awaiting a decision on this, the SEC composition was still the one that was elected for a term of only six months to carry out the referendum, and then the members had their mandates extended to a maximum of two years, because there wouldn’t have been a commission to conduct the presidential elections. Regarding the election model, however, modalities were considered to reduce the number of constituencies to one or possibly to three, as well as the possibility of introducing open lists. Estimates are that if such major changes are made to the election regulations it will take at least six months before their implementation. According to the Constitution, regular parliamentary elections are held in the last 90 days of the old parliamentary composition’s mandate (which in this case would mean between the end of September and the beginning of December) or within 60 days after the dissolution of parliament – in case of extraordinary elections.
Aleksandra M. Mitevska