ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 24, No. 1 (MK)

Dec 2019

North Macedonia political briefing: Macedonian politics in 2019 Anastas Vangeli

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

Macedonian politics in 2019

Introduction

After a prolonged period of crises and uncertainty, policymakers, experts and the mass public hoped that in 2019, the Republic of North Macedonia (hereinafter Macedonia) would move towards a political trajectory of reconciliation, reform and integration into the international rules-based order. Having entered a contentious process of changing the country's constitutional name (into North Macedonia) in 2018 in order to solve the decades- long dispute with neighboring Greece, once the renaming was concluded with the formal adoption of the several sets of Constitutional amendments in early 2019, the Macedonian government expected to receive a reward from the international community for its efforts, and designed its political strategy around this assumption. The reward would have arrived in the form of a resolute and smooth advancement of the country's bid to join NATO and the EU (both of which had previously stalled in part due to the objections by Greece), both of which have been widely expected to produce a momentum for simultaneously advancing democratic reforms and unlocking economic progress.

Nevertheless, these expectations were hardly met. 2019 turned out to be another year of challenges and difficulties, which in turn prohibited any significant steps towards meaningful political transformation in the country. Some of the reasons for this included the unexpectedly turbulent ride of the Macedonian government at the international stage, the increase in the already deep divisions across party lines, the rise of ethnic nationalism due to the change of the name of the country and the accompanying identity politics; and, even more significantly and unexpectedly, the emergence of a novel grand corruption scandal (the “Racket” affair), which – in what has seemed as a deja vu for the mass public – involved the proliferation of leaked incriminating audio tapes implicating the power elites in the country. Amid all these developments, then, Macedonia ended the year with another deja vu in the form of the announcement of a yet another early parliamentary election to be held in April 2020.

Renaming, Elections and General Political Trajectory

By January 11, 2019, the Macedonian Parliament had fully implemented the Prespa Agreement, which meant that the process of the renaming of the country had concluded and

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Macedonia has been since officially known as the “Republic of North Macedonia.” One of the key steps in this direction was securing a two-thirds majority in the Parliament to pass the proposed Constitutional amendments (i.e. the Government needed to secure the support of 80 out of 120 members of the Parliament). Since the ruling coalition of SDSM and DUI combined had no more than 60-something votes, the government needed to reach out to political opponents to secure the additional support in Parliament, primarily by MPs from the ranks of the smaller ethnic Albanian parties (Besa and Alliance for Albanians) and the largest party in the Parliament, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE. In return for the support of the smaller ethnic Albanian parties, the government supported the push for making Albanian a second official language in the country (the Law on the Use of Languages came into effect on January 14, 2019). The ruling coalition also ensured the support of 8 VMRO-DPMNE MPs (all of them in some way implicated in corruption cases) who broke the party ranks, and in return received a lenient treatment (and in some instances pardoning) for the various charges against them. Both trade-offs – the support for the introduction of Albanian as a second official language, and letting the suspected VMRO-DPMNE MPs walk away free from the face of justice – made the process of the renaming of the country even more controversial and contentious.

The Prespa Agreement was sealed with the voted of the Greek Parliament by January 25. In the period to follow, the practicalities concerning the change of the name entered full swing. Official signs at the border crossings were first to be replaced. Next in line were the names of public institutions, starting from the Government itself. Car registration plates and personal documents have been changed on a rolling basis. Greek-Macedonian committees have in the meantime discussed a number of other issues, from brands and trademarks containing the term “Macedonia” and its derivatives, to the interpretation of history in schoolbooks.

The renaming of the country and the new identity politics associated with it was accompanied by intense public debates. While the government and its supporters adopted a triumphant and optimistic position centered on the narratives of the prospective accession to NATO and EU, there was also a display of dissatisfaction and frustration coming primarily from ethnic Macedonian voices who felt humiliated and victimized – the loudest one being the outgoing President of the country, Gjorge Ivanov. However, in practice, ethnic Macedonian political subjects – and in the first place VMRO-DPMNE – demonstrated disproportionately low level of actual political opposition to the process compared to the political rhetoric they employed. In that sense, the indignation of a significant share of the population was not represented and politically channeled, remaining to hover around the political landscape throughout the period to follow.

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The process of the changing of the name of the country created new lines of division in the country in 2019: one one side, there were those in favor of changing of the name of the country on one side (ethnic Macedonians with a clear pro-Western orientation, who tend to vote for SDSM and the majority ethnic Albanians) and disgruntled ethnic Macedonians (partially represented by VMRO-DPMNE) on the other. The new lines of political division shaped the political reality around the presidential elections of 2019, which took place in April and May of the same year. As Gjorge Ivanov (a university professor supported by VMRO-DPMNE) was completing his second term in power (2009-2014 and 2014-2019), the names of the candidates for his successor were unknown up until few weeks before the elections. The governing coalition led by SDSM and DUI nominated Stevo Pendarovski, a university professor who was a runner up in the 2014 elections and close to SDSM. Pendarovski's nomination was the first instance of DUI supporting an ethnic Macedonian candidate in the first round of the election. VMRO-DPMNE nominated Gordana Siljanovska, a university professor with a history of progressive activism – but who had embraced a hard-line rhetoric on the Prespa Agreement. Blerim Reka, a university professor who has had a career in public officialdom in both Macedonia and Kosovo was nominated by the Alliance for Albanians and Besa as an ethnic Albanian candidate. The first round of the elections took place on April 21, 2019, and had a low turnout level (41.67% of the registered voters), barely meeting the validity threshold (40%). Reka (79,888) was eliminated, while Pendarovski (322,581) and Siljanovska (318,341) were in a virtual tie, separated by about 4.000 votes. In the second round which took place on May 5, the turnout increased to 46,7%; while Siljanovska (377,446) managed to mobilize some of the abstainers from the first round Pendarovski's (435,656) campaign managed to attract both abstainers and some of Reka's voters and to win by a respectable margin. Pendarovski's victory in the elections marked the peak of SDSM's reign, as now the party had established control over the three pillars of the executive power in the country: the Government, the local self-government, and the Presidency. Pendarovski was a strong supporter of the change of the name of Macedonia; whereas Ivanov in his last months in power had opposed the renaming, Pendarovski had actively facilitated it since the first day in office. Therefore, Pendarovski's victory was also interpreted as another signal of the triumph of the pro-Western forces in the country, reinforcing the hopes that Macedonia's accession to NATO would be concluded in the course of 2019, while also creating the expectation that the country would also formally start the negotiations for joining the EU.

However, by summer 2019 it was obvious that joining both NATO and EU would be more complicated and would require other conditions to be fulfilled – beyond the name issue

3 itself. Whereas NATO member states had ratified the resolution for Macedonia's accession to the alliance, delays related to their own domestic political developments had delayed the conclusion of the process. Even more complex has been the bid to start the negotiations for EU membership – while Macedonia has won the support of the European Commission and of the majority of the governments of the EU member states, on several occasions in 2019 it became clear that domestic politics in several EU member states (in the first place France and the Netherlands) stand in the way – leading to yet another round of delays in opening of the negotiations. As a consequence, whereas the Macedonian government had remained optimistic and did not alter its course, at some point it acknowledged that despite its efforts and sacrifice, it has not received the expected reward from the international community. Using the negative outcome of the October 18 European Council (when France once again blocked the opening of enlargement negotiations), the then Prime Minister Zoran Zaev called for swift early parliamentary elections (the regular elections had been planned for winter 2020).

Due do the complex regulation in place after the political crisis (as stipulated by the so called Przhino Agreement of 2016), the organization of parliamentary elections had to be carried out following special procedures that would ensure maximum transparency and prevent any potential manipulation by the government. This would include the stepping down of the incumbent Prime Minister, as well as the replacement of the Ministers of Interior and Labor and Social Policy with candidates nominated by the opposition, a hundred days ahead of the election. The leaders of the political parties in the country agreed that the date for the early elections would be April 12, 2020. On December 27, 2019, as part of the Przhino-style arrangement, Zoran Zaev stepped down from the position of Prime Minister, and was replaced by Oliver Spasovski from the ranks of SDSM, considered to be close and loyal to Zaev, who held the position of a Minister of Interior under the Zaev government. Along with him, Mila Carovska, a rising star in the SDSM governments stepped down from the position of Minister of Labor and Social Policy, and became Vice Prime Minister in charge of economic affairs.

Struggle with the Rule of Law

Ever since the days of the major political crisis 2015-2017, Macedonia has been struggling with dealing with the numerous charges for grand corruption dating to the period of the VMRO-DPMNE rule (2006-2017). In 2019, the image of impunity of the VMRO-DPMNE elite was reinforced during a number of instances. The most notable case has of course been the one of the former Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, who had been found guilty for illegally

4 influencing a procurement procedure and sentenced to 2 years of prison. Gruevski in late 2018, however, had escaped to Budapest, where he was granted asylum. Gruevski had spent 2019 safely in Budapest, actively posting on social media. Macedonian authorities never managed to come up with a coherent story about his escape. In Summer 2019, the Hungarian authorities rejected the request for Gruevski's extradition. In November 2019, the corruption charges against Gruevski for the construction of two highways (funded by China's ExIm bank, with Sinohydro being the major implementer) expired, and were dismissed.

Furthermore, while the Special Prosecutor's Office (SPO) pursued dozens of investigations and pressed charges against a number of former VMRO-DPMNE officials, in 2019 a number of cases ended in a dead-end or were forced to restart. In March 2019, the former security czar and Gruevski's cousin, Sasho Mijalkov, as well as the leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians, Menduh Tachi were among a group of people sentenced for electoral fraud. However, Mijalkov and Tachi appealed the sentence. In December 2019, the Appellate Court nullified their sentences, and they walked away free, and are now awaiting retrial. The former Minister of Interior Gordana Jankuloska who had been sentenced to four years of prison in the same case as Gruevski, had her sentence suspended by the Supreme Court. The former Mayor of the Karposh Municipality in Skopje, Stevcho Jakimovski of GROM (a junior partner of VMRO-DPMNE), was arrested on charges of abuse of office, but was put in home custody, and later on set free. One exception to this trend, however, has been the dealing with the case of the violent break-in in the Parliament in April 2018. Scores of participants have been indicted, including Mitko Chavkov, a former Minister of Interior from the ranks of VMRO-DPMNE, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison on charges of terrorism (cumulatively 16 participants have been sentenced to 211 years in prison). However, a number of other suspects have been pardoned or found not guilty, including high ranking VMRO-DPMNE figures.

Finally, in July 2019, a new scandal broke out: a series of leaked audio and video tapes revealed a massive operation which involved Bojan Jovanovski (known as Boki 13, a media personality and manager of 1TV, a pro-SDSM media outlet), Zoran Milevski (known as Kicheec, a security operative who was part of the inner circle of Mijalkov), Katica Janeva (the Chief Special Prosecutor) and high ranking SDSM officials, who all conspired together to extort 1.5 million EUR from Orce Kamchev (one of the richest individuals in Macedonia, a tycoon who has had a close relationship with VMRO-DPMNE). This so called “Racket” affair dominated Macedonian politics until the end of 2019. Jovanovski, Milevski and Janeva have all been arrested, whereas a number of political figures, including the former Prime Minister Zaev have been called out for having had previous knowledge of the “Racket” operations, and

5 others for being accomplices. VMRO-DPMNE officials have gone on the offensive and in their public relations campaign, have pointed to the potential “sequels” of the “Racket” affair, that would implicate an even greater number of SDSM officials. The downfall of Janeva, at the same time, has tarnished the reputation of the SPO and made the processing of the cases dating to the VMRO-DPMNE era even more complicated. Fittingly, as part of the legal reforms and political bargaining, in Fall 2019 the cases led by SPO were taken over by the regular Public Prosecutor's Office, which de facto meant an end for the SPO.

In sum, Macedonia has had another turbulent year in 2019. With a changed name, deepened political polarization, and embroiled into yet another grand corruption scandal, the country is entering the new year, expecting early parliamentary elections.

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