The two political opponents, the Prime Minister and leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, and the chairman of SDSM, Branko Crvenkovski, are going to meet Tuesday at 13.00 hrs. This is going to be their first meeting after Crvenkovski restored himself to the position of chairman of the largest opposition party. The meeting will most probably took place at the Club of MPs but it is not ruled out for the prime minister to change the location in the last minute and invite his most fierce rival in his government office.
They will have a lot of issues to talk about. As an act of good will so that things can finally move forward, Crvenkovski said Friday that the unblocking of the accounts of A1, Vreme, Spic and **** e Re was no longer a precondition for talks but a topic for discussion between the political parties. The Social Democrats refuse to renounce their demand that the government should let the media operate as well as their other demands. The opposition is primarily going to insist that consensus be reached with all relevant political parties regarding the election law, the media law and all the other conditions for holding fair and democratic elections.
Without a concrete and acceptable agreement, SDSM and the entire opposition front is not going to participate in the elections. They are against meetings in which, as Crvenkovski said, the prime minister is going to bring the entire omnibus of parties comprising the governing coalition, and in which they will talk for four hours and Nikola Gruevski for only four minutes.
Before meeting Crvenkovski, Prime Minister Gruevski warned his rival from a public debate in Strumica not to set demands in order to buy time. However, immediately after Crvenkovski said at a press conference he accepted the invitation for a meeting, VMRO-DPMNE issued an announcement that does not inspire much hope that the outcome of the two leaders’ meeting will be positive.
VMRO-DPMNE HQ reiterated that they see the acceptance of the invitation as an attempt on Crvenkovski’s part to pull himself out of the situation in which he got stuck though a fault of his own and with which he seriously harmed the interests of the citizens and the country and that they hoped that this was not yet another bluff and political maneuver of Crvenkovski by which he would try to disrupt the election process in an attempt to prolong the elections only to delay the end of his political career.
Analysts believe it is high time Crvenkovski and Gruevski realized Macedonia’s future and the democratic processes in general were at risk. Mahi Nesimi believes that what VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM have so far demonstrated does not give hope that their leaders are preoccupied with the country’s future. In this respect, he says, Gruevski’s responsibility is much bigger because he is not only a prime minister but is also the president of the largest ruling party and he and his VMRO-DPMNE are responsible for everything that happens. It is for this reason that the prime minister rather than the opposition should demonstrate more flexibility.
Professor Lazar Lazarov says the sheer meeting is a positive step.
“After everything both parties have done I think the meeting is per se a good sign and will do Macedonia good, considering they have tarnished enough the reputation of the country at home and especially abroad. Now we cannot blame the international community that it interferes with our home affairs because we ourselves contribute to that conduct. We have helped the international representatives get accustomed to that kind of conduct and they are now bothering us. We have thus contributed to the treatment of Macedonia as a banana state,” Professor Lazarov says.
