Zaev needs to find an advisor for the advisors

Slobodanka Jovanovska

High school graduate and a thick biography of threats and violence, Xhezair Shaqiri Hoxha said yesterday that there were “all kinds of people” in the Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s government, so he does not see why he should not be part of his cabinet. Why do you bother with me, I need a function to survive, Hoxha stated on his Facebook account.

The words “all kinds of people” described the current prime minister’s personnel policy, which is no longer intriguing, but gets frightening directions. If one takes Commander Hoxha’s statement seriously, it turns out that anyone who does not have any way to survive and did Zaev some kind of favor, can count on a salary of “miserable” 36,000 denars, as the new advisor on issues for which the United States and the State Department gave their opinions long time ago, by putting him on the blacklist indefinitely.

After the initial disbelief that such an appointment is possible at all, even as an external counselor, the dilemma is normally set up What did Commander Hoxha do, who is not a member of any party with which SDSM wants to create a coalition, who is neither politically, but criminally active, and who has no qualifications to justify his appointment, for him to receive our money, which we deposit to the state account, each month. Hard-earned money by most citizens of Macedonia, while some do not even earn it. If it is precisely what Hoxha claims, that he became an advisor, because that is the only way he will not create the problems of the Prime Minister in Tanusevci, we all need to think about how strong and what kind of control the SDSM government has in the country, when everyone with a criminal mind can blackmail – for survival of a budget account. From what Hoxha said, the only realistic thing is what he denied – that he earned the position, for which many honest, educated, capable, loyal and valuable citizens in Macedonia can only dream about, by getting Albanian votes.

Despite that there are less capable people on the prime minister’s advisors’ list and other lists that resemble a kind of “Pleiades of the deserving”, the additional impression is that a new political underworld is created before our eyes, and Hoxha should be the at bottom of the pyramid, which is certainly not there to strengthen democracy in Macedonia, because he has nothing to say on that topic.

The government’s explanation yesterday was that Hoxha would advise the prime minister for internal security and the fight against radicalism, presumably because only such qualifications can be attributed to him. But in the opposite direction. If this is a non-existent post and repaying for some former merit, it could be somewhat acceptable, but if it is a salary for some future service, such as those that the advisor can accomplish, then the prime minister entered a thick political cobweb, so it is not too early to tell him that VMRO-DPMNE started this naively, before they sunk into the political mud from which they later, even if they wanted, could not get away because there would never be a way back from this process. When foreign investments are chased by someone who came in to domestic firms, pressured executives and arrested them, then it may sound reasonable for our home security to be taken care of by someone who threatened it for years – and that “normality” is the worst thing that is happening to us now, because, until recently, such decisions made by Zaev seemed impossible.

Another issue is what remained of the Government’s much-praised transparency, which obviously amounts to publishing only decisions that are not controversial for the public, while sweeping everything else under the rug, above all the personnel appointments. In making coalitions with everyone, for the sake of stability of power and for peace at home, Prime Minister Zaev obviously exaggerated. The explanation from the Government’s website that the Prime Minister, at his own discretion and free assessment, can hire outsiders, fails to give an additional answer to the following question – with his own, or with our money, in his, or in our interest? Ultimately, the Prime Minister should come out publicly and tell Commander Hoxha to become Commander of the Government, and we must pay for it. Otherwise, he will need an advisor for the advisors, or worse, an advisor on how to survive, because fictitious functions and fictitious voices make fictitious democracy and fictitious victory. If that is the issue.

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