The major opposition political party SDSM walked out of the Parliament in protest against the blocking of the accounts of A1 television and the papers Vreme, Spic and Koha e Re, said opposition leader Branko Crvenkovski. VMRO-DPMNE wished him luck and accused him of protecting crime by deciding to boycott the Parliament.
NSDP and the MPs Stojan Andov and Gjorgji Orovcanec joined SDSM as well. A total of 32 MPs together with the parliamentary group of PDSH, which has been boycotting the Parliament for a year and a half now, are out of the Parliament at the moment. LDP is the only opposition party that has remained in the Parliament.
Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski scheduled a coordination meeting of the parliamentary groups Monday, which SDSM instantly refused, explaining that they would not attend either the coordination meetings or the work of any other parliamentary body.
Announcing the boycott, Crvenkovski said he would no longer give legitimacy to Gruevski’s undemocratic and unpopular government.
“Under Gruevski’s rule, Macedonia is neither democratic nor free. This regime has dangerous intentions as regards our country. We are either going to stop it or become its accomplices. I myself have never supported boycott of institutions. I have always believed that in a parliamentary democracy this is not the right way to fight a political battle. However, Macedonia with this government has long since stopped being a democracy. Now Gruevski can have the Parliament he has long wished to have – without an opposition,” Crvenkovski said.
In his view, the blocking of A1 television’s accounts sent down the drain all Gruevski’s attempts to prove that the crackdown on the firms on Pero Nakov Street was not a campaign against a single medium.
“Their objective is creating constant divisions and confrontations, tension and conflict in the Macedonian society. They set the media, journalists, patients and doctors, students and professors, administration and farmers against each another. Following the economic desolation, the social misery and the international isolation, utterly irresponsibly they are now plunging the country into a political crisis with unimaginable consequences,” Crvenkovski said.
VMRO-DPMNE wished Crvenkovski all the best.
“If Crvenkovski decides to step out of the Parliament to protect crime, let him do that. We wish him luck. Macedonia is going to progress. Macedonia is going to win without Branko Crvenkovski,” said Gordana Jankulovska, member of VMRO-DPMNE’s executive committee.
In her view, Crvenkovski knows that he is going to do harm to Macedonia’s European future yet decided to take that step because “he thinks only of himself and has nothing to lose”.
