The leaders of the major political parties are discussing in President Ivanov’s office Monday the political crisis in Macedonia after the major opposition party SDSM, Demokracia e Re and a few smaller political party walked out of Parliament. The opposition says the country is in a grave political crisis because of PM Gruevski’s dictatorship and the ignoring of the opposition’s demands by the ruling party in Parliament. The opposition also assesses that the government is attacking the media critical of its work with its recent block of the account of the opposition A1 television.

The presidency of opposition SDSM held a meeting over the weekend and sent a few demands to PM Gruevski as a condition for their return to Parliament. SDSM demands of PM Gruevski to immediately unblock A1’s account and allow the papers Vreme, Spic and *** e Re to work. SDSM also wants Justice Minister Mihajlo Manevski to be removed from the Judicial Council, the election law to change, and budget funds to be distributed evenly to all media for airing government campaigns.

PM Gruevski assessed the opposition’s demand to make it possible for Ramkovski’s media to continue working as illegitimate considering that the government has no power to interfere with court decisions. The prime minister also called on SDSM to reconsider its decision to walk out of the Parliament, reminding them of the joint meeting of a week ago with President Ivanov at which SDSM leader Crvenkovski did not mention any problems in the functioning of the Parliament. Gruevski believes that boycotting Parliament without a good reason is gross violation of the democratic process.

The executive committee of ruling VMRO-DPMNE did not meet this weekend to discuss the latest events although the meeting was announced by a number of media. Certain sources speculate that VMRO-DPMNE would state its position after SDSM defines its demands particularly with regard to the early elections and the conditions for holding them.

In the meantime, the parties of the Albanians, PDSH and Demokracia e Re, say there are no conditions for holding the census in April. BDI, which is part of the governing coalition, says the preparations for the census are underway and the instructions of the party are that it should be taken. However, if the opposition does not return to Parliament and if all agree that the only way out of the political crisis is early elections, the census should be second-important. More specifically, if elections are held, the census should be postponed.

Dnevnik comments that SDSM has not been naïve at all in setting its demands because their acceptance takes time. At their press conference, Sunday SDSM said the realization of their demands could result into holding elections in their regular term. However, SDSM believes that the census is a simple statistical and technical operation conducted by state institutions and not dependent at all on the current political situation, i.e. on whether the opposition boycotts the Parliament or not.

Sources from ruling VMRO-DPMNE told Utrinski vesnik that opposition SDSM deliberately sets demands which it knows are impossible to meet at this moment in order to plunge the country into a more severe crisis.

“Removing Manevski from the Judicial Council is not a problem for us but SDSM knows that if a debate on changing the Constitution as regards the Judicial Council begins BDI will immediately call for a vote by the Badinter principle in the judiciary, thus opening Pandora’s box,” sources of VMRO-DPMNE told Utrinski vesnik.

Menduh Thaci’s PDSH that has been boycotting Parliament for six months is going to boycott the meeting at President Ivanov’s office too, while Imer Selmani’s Demokracia e Re hopes that in Macedonia equality and democracy will be restored and meaningful dialogue will finally begin.

The international community is constantly appealing to party leaders to overcome the crisis. Dutch Ambassador Simone Filippini told Radio Free Europe she believed the political actors should begin a fundamental discussion and learn to respect each other. This means that the government majority should show more respect for minority parties and vice versa.

The political dialogue problems and boycotts have been following the Government of PM Gruevski since 2006. A reason for the problem in 2006 was that a coalition partner in the Government was PDSH and BDI boycotted the Parliament.