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Change of guard atop ‘disastrous’ Balkan state
Change of guard atop ‘disastrous’ Balkan state
New PM Zoran Zaev wants to get Macedonia back on track for NATO and EU membership
SKOPJE, Macedonia — Even by regional standards, Macedonia’s new Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has a daunting to-do list.
Like most of its Balkan neighbors, the country of around 2 million people is among Europe’s poorest and suffers from deeply entrenched organized crime, widespread corruption and weak rule of law.
But Zaev, a 42-year-old businessman who has never held high office, also faces challenges unique to Macedonia. These include a dispute with neighboring Greece over the country’s name that has blocked its path to the EU and NATO, disagreements with Bulgaria over history and language, tenuous relations between the two largest ethnic groups and a public administration stuffed with officials loyal to the last government.
“Politicians in the past have shown that they abuse the system,” Zaev told POLITICO in his office in the capital, Skopje, sitting in front of a floor-to-ceiling pastoral painting of four maidens at a water fountain — a leftover from his predecessor’s neoclassical makeover of the building.
“I am hoping we will organize society in a different way, with more democracy, more freedom, and more justice.”
Zaev, who served three terms as mayor of the eastern city of Strumica, will need a lot more than hope to make progress. But he has already shown considerable perseverance to get this far. He came to power after a protracted political crisis culminated in April with supporters of the old nationalist-led government storming the parliament and attacking lawmakers, including Zaev, who was left with blood streaming down his face from a head wound.
Zaev says he is ready to make concessions if Athens is ready to drop its opposition to Macedonia’s membership of the EU and NATO.
The violence prompted a change of course by President Gjorge Ivanov, who had refused for months to appoint Zaev prime minister even though he had put together a majority coalition after a parliamentary election. Ivanov had cited fears that Zaev would make too many concessions to Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority but he finally let the Social Democrat leader form a government in May.
Zaev himself triggered the crisis — the worst since Macedonia narrowly avoided all-out civil war in 2001 — when he released wiretapped recordings in 2015 that he said were made by state intelligence officials. The wiretaps contained apparent evidence of high-level officials discussing election tampering, corruption, and even a murder cover-up. Thousands of people staged street protests, outraged by the revelations and by the fact the government had been tapping more than 20,000 phone lines.
“The political crisis showed the disastrous state of our society,” Zaev said.
“There are no more secrets in our society. Everybody knows the weaknesses in the judiciary, in state institutions, in the security system, in media … all these checks and balances — every normal country has it. We don’t really have it.”
Name claim
Zaev, an economist by training, has put forward a series of reforms to strengthen Macedonia’s democratic institutions, which international organizations, including the EU, say were severely undermined during the decade-long rule of the previous prime minister, Nikola Gruevski.
The reforms are also meant to allow Macedonia to open EU accession negotiations after nine months.
Western powers clearly wish Zaev well. One Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the new premier “the best chance this country has ever had.”
To achieve his goals, however, Zaev will need to solve a problem that has dogged Macedonia ever since it broke away from collapsing communist Yugoslavia in 1991 — Greece’s objection to the country’s name.
As a region of northern Greece is called Macedonia, Athens argues that Skopje’s use of the name implies a claim on its territory. Greeks are also angry that Skopje lays claim to figures such as Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, historically considered part of Greek culture.
Gruevski’s government chose to defy Athens by ordering a huge makeover of Skopje with neoclassical facades and naming chunks of infrastructure such as the main airport and a highway after Alexander the Great.
Zaev says he is ready to make concessions if Athens is ready to drop its opposition to Macedonia’s membership of the EU and NATO.
“If the Greek side is really prepared to help us, we are prepared to think about everything that will be helpful,” he said. “I am not fixed on any issue so everything is possible.”
Zaev also wants to improve relations with Bulgaria by signing a “friendship agreement” when Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov visits early next month.
Macedonia and Bulgaria share linguistic and cultural similarities but also hold differing views of their history and language. Bulgaria does not recognize the Macedonian language, viewing it as a dialect of Bulgarian, and the countries’ historical records differ over whether ancient leaders were ethnically Bulgarian or Macedonian.
Zaev is facing pressure from coalition partners who represent the ethnic Albanian minority to fulfill a pledge increase the official use of the Albanian language.
The government has presented a draft of the accord to a closed session of parliament, but not yet to the public — an illustration of the tension between Zaev’s desire to make quick progress and his pledge to make politics more transparent.
Zaev said the agreement would not damage the country in any way but make Bulgaria “more dedicated” to friendship. This would make Sofia a staunch advocate for Macedonia when Bulgaria assumes the presidency of the Council of the EU in January 2018, he argued.
“Accepting common history in the agreement is no danger for any country and no danger for us,” he said.
Hurdles at home
Things are hardly more straightforward on the domestic front.
Zaev said that, upon assuming office, his government found almost a billion euros in previously unreported debt and many of his staff’s offices had been stripped of computers, tables and chairs.
In parliament, VMRO-DPMNE, the former governing party, has split its 51 MPs into 10 parliamentary groups in order to obstruct debate over reforms such as a new budget and the appointment of a chief prosecutor.
The fate of a special prosecutor’s office, set up to investigate the wiretap revelations as part of an EU-brokered effort to end the political crisis back in 2015, also hangs in the balance.
Meanwhile, Zaev is facing pressure from coalition partners who represent the ethnic Albanian minority — estimated to make up around a quarter of the population — to fulfill a pledge increase the official use of the Albanian language.
The new prime minister must also try to free state institutions from the control of officials who got their jobs thanks to their close links to VMRO-DPMNE, while at the same time resisting the temptation to replace them with his own party cronies.
“The new government has the task of reforming, or separating the party from the state in both the judiciary and the administration, which is not easy considering that the public sector is the biggest employer in the country,” said Simonida Kacarska, director of the Skopje-based European Policy Institute think tank.
Nikola Poposki, a VMRO-DPMNE MP who served previously as foreign minister, cautioned that Zaev had “overpromised” and faced a big challenge to “adjust the expectations of voters” in a highly polarized political environment.
But for now, Zaev is choosing to look on the bright side. He hailed the fact that Macedonia managed to reach an agreement with Bulgaria on its own, without mediation from outsiders, which has been the norm in recent decades in the Balkans.
“We are very proud … that we will send a message to the world,” he said. “There is a capacity of politicians, when they want to, to find a solution for those kinds of sensitive problems.“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario SavioComment
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Macedonia’s Gruevski Says He Will 'Soon' Step Down As Leader Of VMRO-DPMNE
Macedonia’s Gruevski Says He Will 'Soon' Step Down As Leader Of VMRO-DPMNE
Nikola Gruevski, the leader of Macedonia’s VMRO-DPMNE, says he plans to step down “soon” as the head of the country’s conservative opposition party.
His comments, made in an interview published on December 1 by Kurir News come just over a month after the ruling Social Democratic Union (SDSM) won a sweeping victory over the VMRO-DPMNE in two rounds of local elections.
The results delivered a severe blow to the VMRO-DPMNE, which had ruled much of the country for more than a decade and spurred debate within the party over its leadership.
Gruevski, who faces criminal investigations involving allegations of corruption and a wire-tapping scandal from during his time as the country’s prime minister, complained of irregularities in the election but conceded defeat.
“Regardless of the outcome of the election analysis, even if it finds that objectively my responsibility for the defeat was small or nonexistent, I will submit my resignation,” Gruevski said in the interview.
He added that he hopes his departure would help “to settle the overall political atmosphere” in the former Yugoslav republic.
Gruevski did not specify when he would resign as party leader but said it could happen within the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, Macedonian deputies voted on December 1 to lift the immunity of six VMRO-DPMNE members to allow them to be prosecuted over an attack by protesters on the parliament building in April.
The action was supported by 67 of the 120-member chamber. Opposition lawmakers boycotted the vote, claiming it was politically motivated.
The public prosecutor has charged 36 people with a “terrorist threat to the constitutional order and security" over the storming of parliament that left more than 100 people injured.
The six MPs could not be detained or tried unless their immunity was lifted.“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario SavioComment
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Gruevski Resigns
Former Macedonian Rightist PM Resigns Party Leadership
SKOPJE (Reuters) - Former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, head of the opposition rightist VMRO-DPMNE party, resigned on Monday following an election defeat last year and unrest that rocked the small Balkan country in April.
Gruevski, 47, led the ex-Yugoslav republic for almost a decade, and his party bloc since 2003, until January 2016 when a wiretapping scandal brought down the ruling VMRO-DPMNE bloc.
A snap election in December 2016 ended inconclusively and a long parliamentary stalemate ensued, ending in May when Social Democrat Zoran Zaev formed a coalition with ethnic Albanian parties that represent a third of the 2 million population.
VMRO-DPMNE said its Central Committee had scheduled a leadership congress for Dec. 22-23 after Gruevski's "irrevocable resignation.
"Gruevski said that ... his resignation was a moral act, as it is natural that the person in whom everyone had confidence should take the responsibility for the (electoral) defeat," a party statement said.
In April, protesters including VMRO-DPMNE supporters stormed parliament and assaulted Zaev as Social Democrats and its ethnic Albanian allies elected an ethnic Albanian as parliament speaker. Dozens were injured in riots.
The VMRO-DPMNE suffered a further setback last month when police arrested Mitko Cavkov, a former interior minister, and a number of its lawmakers and activists on charges related to the disturbances in April.
The April unrest marked the worst crisis in Macedonia since 2001 when Western diplomats narrowly averted a full-scale civil war arising from an ethnic Albanian insurgency, promising Skopje a pathway to membership of the European Union and NATO.
Macedonia, which won independence in 1991 from then-federal Yugoslavia in 1991, has made little progress towards EU and NATO membership due to a name dispute with Greece.“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario SavioComment
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I've seen "neutral" sources use some variation of the reference and claim the crisis is "resolved" but this is just ridiculous. Did an Albanian write this one?....Albanian parties that represent a third of the 2 million population.Comment
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Macedonian court sentences former PM Gruevski to 2 years in Prison
Macedonian court sentences former PM Gruevski to 2 years
SKOPJE, Macedonia — A Macedonian criminal court has sentenced former conservative prime minister Nikola Gruevski to two years in prison for unlawfully influencing officials at the interior ministry over the purchase of a luxury bulletproof car.
The court ruled on Wednesday that Gruevski, who served as prime minister from 2006-2016, had influenced officials in the 2012 purchase of his luxury Mercedes at an estimated cost of 600,000 euros (around $700,000).
The 47-year-old Gruevski was not present in court when the verdict was read and will remain free pending appeal.
He was convicted using evidence from audio material collected during a massive wiretapping scandal that erupted in 2015 and contributed to the demise of his government. The judge ruled to accept the audio material as evidence as it was in the public interest.“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario SavioComment
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Macedonia Jails Former PM Gruevski For Two Years
A court in Skopje on Wednesday sentenced former PM Nikola Gruevski to two years in jail for his involvement in the illicit secret purchase of a luxury Mercedes.
Gruevski, Macedonia's former prime minister and former leader of the VMRO DPMNE party, was jailed for two years on Wednesday for “receiving a reward”, in the form of a luxury Mercedes, after previously “illegally influencing” the other two accused to commit the illegal purchase of the vehicle.
The Skopje Criminal Court jailed another accused, former assistant interior minister Gjoko Popovski, for six-and-a-half-years.
The procedure for former interior minister Gordana Jankuloska is being led separately due to her pregnancy.
During the elaboration of the verdict, judge Dobrila Kacarska said Gruevski had solicited the purchase of the 580,000 euros Mercedes from then Interior Minister Jankuloska.
She added that Jankuloska then encouraged Popovski to rig the tendering procedure by favouring the company Mak Auto Star, which is a Mercedes dealer for Macedonia.
Aially Prime Ministerial, represents an honour. He [Gruevski] received his legitimacy from the citizens, and so was supposed to take care of their interests. Instead, he humiliated and underestimated them [the citizens],” judge Kacarska said.
Gruevski did not appear in court to hear the verdict in the case, which the Special Prosecution, SJO, in charge of investigating allegations of high-level crime, dubbed “Tank”.
At previous court hearings, he told reporters in front of the court that the entire case had been framed against him by the current government, led by the Social Democrats, SDSM.
A small group of Gruevski’s supporters protested over the verdict in front of the court where police were deployed to prevent possible incidents.
The verdict against Gruevski was the first in the five active court cases against him raised by the SJO. Gruevski is also on trial in the SJO cases dubbed “Violence”, “Trajectory”, “Titanic“ and “TNT”.
All of these cases stem from the content of the illegal wiretaps that the former opposition Social Democrats aired in batches during 2015.
The airing of these wiretaps containing secretly recorded tapes of official conversations, along with the then opposition claims that they originated from within the secret police – and that Gruevski had orchestrated the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people – created a deep political crisis.
Gruevski’s VMRO DPMNE party, which led Macedonia's government from 2006, was finally ousted from power last year, after which he resigned as party leader.
Gruevski and VMRO DPMNE whose many former officials are now facing trials and investigations maintain that these wiretaps are illegally acquired and cannot be used in court and that the current government is pressuring the courts for selective justice.Comment
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Thanks Albo.
I wonder what kind of kickbacks your lot are getting for sitting at the same table as zaev now. Any idea?Risto the Great
MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
"Holding my breath for the revolution."
Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.comComment
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Macedonia ex-PM Gruevski jailed over luxury Mercedes purchase
Former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been sentenced to two years in prison for corruption.
A court in Skopje found he had unlawfully influenced officials over the purchase of a luxury bulletproof Mercedes Benz worth €600,000 (£525,000, $700,000) in 2012.
It was the first of five cases against the long-serving leader to go to trial.
He was forced to leave office in 2016 after a year of protests and 10 years in power.
Prosecutors used secret recordings to show that Gruevski had influenced a member of a tender commission to promote a particular car dealer to supply the vehicle for his personal use. In return for this, he was alleged to have received money from the dealer.
Gruevski was eventually forced out of office because of a wire-tapping scandal.
He was accused by rivals of personally ordering the tapping of up to 20,000 people. He also faces charges of involvement in vote-rigging and bribery during his decade as leader.
Earlier this week the current prime minister, Zoran Zaev, was cleared of corruption on a charge of taking a bribe to help a local businessman buy land.“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario SavioComment
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Macedonia's ex-PM Nikola Gruevski sentenced to two years for abuse of power
A court in Macedonia has found former prime minister Nikola Gruevski guilty of abusing his post over the purchase of a luxury bulletproof Mercedes. Macedonian media have dubbed the scandal "the Tank affair."
Macedonia's former head of government, Nikola Gruevski, unlawfully influenced state officials to buy a Mercedes worth around €600,000 ($702,207), and then kept the vehicle for personal use, a court in Skopje found on Wednesday.
Judge Dobrila Kacarska sentenced the embattled politician to two years in prison. The former prime minister is to remain free pending an appeal.
Prosecutors say Gruevski called his then-interior minister Gordana Jankulovska in 2012 and urged her to order the purchase of the luxury armored car. According to audio evidence, Gruevski said that he would use the car and the public would be kept in the dark.
Moreover, Gruevski apparently received a kickback from a car dealer for recommending it for the purchase.
On Thursday, judge Kacarska said the former prime minister "lied and ridiculed citizens" and was "intentionally trying to hide the vehicle."
Read more: Protesters break into Macedonian president's office, set furniture alight, smash windows at ministry
Gruevski absent from courtroom
The court also sentenced interior ministry official Gjoko Popovski to six and a half years in prison for his role in the case.
The trial of Jankulovska has been separated due to her "risky pregnancy" and is due to start next Monday.
The nationalist Gruevski ruled Macedonia between 2006 and 2016. The 47-year-old politician was not present in the courtroom on Wednesday.
The "Tank affair," as the armored car purchase is known in the Macedonian media, is only one of several legal cases facing the nationalist Gruevski. He also faces charges of corruption, election irregularities, ordering violence, and abuse of office
'Keep your chin up, my proud Macedonians'
Gruevski has denied any wrongdoing. Earlier this week, he slammed the process as "purely political" and "political torture."
On Wednesday, he published a Facebook statement saying that "better times are coming."
"Keep your chin up, my proud Macedonians and proud citizens of Macedonia," he posted. "This is your country, we will never let you down and we will stay shoulder to shoulder with you in any challenge."
A small group of Gruevski supporters gathered before the court building in Skopje during the reading of the verdict.
Gruevski was forced to resign in 2016 over a massive wiretapping scandal, which saw the opposition accuse the government of illegally spying on over 20,000 citizens in a country of around 2.1 million people. Then-opposition leader and current prime minister Zoran Zaev presented the recordings in public, and some of the material has been used against Gruevski over the "Tank affair."“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario SavioComment
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I wish "my kind" who have been involved in whatever illegal deals get locked up for good.. not a pissy 2 years.. they need to be made an example of.. so others think twice..Originally posted by Risto the Great View Post
As the judge said.. Being elected in an honor not a privilege!Comment
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It's only illegal when you're in the opposition party Albo.Risto the Great
MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
"Holding my breath for the revolution."
Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.comComment
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What I find most interesting is that no wiretaps were released of juicy conversations between VMRO and DUI. All this so called political crisis was a fabrication and nothing but a vendetta between two equally gay and corrupt VMRO/SDSM. Nothing to do with corruption, democracy or a better future. Zaev set a sneaky trap with outside support and now that outside support will reap the benefits.Originally posted by Albo View Post
It was either Zaev or gruo in jail.. Zaev won check mate. Gruo now can spend his time in jail and fantasise about being PM and getting revenge. We all saw where Gruos state of mind is when he spilled the glass on the speakers table during the fascist attempt to implement the Albanian language law.Comment
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The powers that be don't give a shit o
If the politicians in Macedonia are corrupt or not. They don't care AT ALL. All they care about is loyalty. This is why a Macedonian politician is going to jail but an Albanian politician is not. You're telling me.that members of DUI are not corrupt?
They are all corrupt. The mistake gruevski made was being even slightly pro east instead of pro west.Comment
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Here's a recent interview from this clown at his 'retreat' in Hungary. Repeatedly refuses to divulge certain information and at the end even has the nerve to tell the interviewer to leave a few things (unsaid) for his (supposedly future) memoirs.
In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.Comment
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