Even the people who viewed Boris Trajkovski a problematically elected president, who lowered the expectations threshold at a greater part of the electorate five years ago, understand today that his time, his policy, his tragic death, the dramatic coincidences and all serious positive and negative implications from this catastrophe, lift this man to the apex of popular memory and in the identification code of Macedonia’s new European political and statehood legitimacy. Indubitably, this remark risks to disrupt the pathos characteristic of the occasion and the usual expressiveness in somber situations. However, when the heads cools off, when the emotions calm, when the partisan or perhaps personal prisms break or retract, most of the people will come to this conclusion.
Boris Trajkovski engraved himself in the political and normative Macedonian transformation on the basis of multiethnic and multicultural contents, democratic form and European orientation. It is a transformation lifting the state into a brand new historical orbit. He played an important role in the opening and scheduling of these processes and the establishment of their cost. Understandably, he was not the author of those historical projects for Macedonia, but the unbiased political analysts agree that his creative role in the entire operation was exceptionally important. In absence of authentic Macedonian vision for historical processes, he was the factor who alleviated the Macedonian resistance in front of some essential and unavoidable changes, unfortunately results of pressures and conflicts. I dare to say that without Trajkovski’s profile, Macedonia’s transition would have been slower and harder. You will recall he was the politician carrying the constructive, salvaging European and American ties in the dramatic moments when his original patron, former Prime Minister Georgievski, destroyed all links with the key European and world centers. He was the President who accepted to enter the challenge of the Ohrid closing of war and constitutional changes, thus facing great risks in front of the frustrated Macedonian public. This was a role that barely anybody could assume. He came from a VMRO political provenience, leaving an impression of unusual lightness, complex free, modern, and intensive in communication with the world leaders and influential individuals, counting on and mainly receiving their support. They, on the other side, viewed him as a cooperative political figure willing to promote their intents and ideas for Macedonia and the region. A part of the Macedonian public always considered it as an absence of integrity with the leader, but history will most probably show that Trajkovski was closer to the truth of the world’s schemes, than the concerned Macedonian isolationists would ever be. The apex of all those transformations should had been Thursday’s presentation of application for Macedonia’s European Union membership, an accomplishment Trajkovski exceptionally contributed to. The irony of destiny tailored a new paradox, whereby his tragic death interrupted the ceremonious act in Dublin. There, the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, should have received the Macedonian application from Prime Minister Crvenkovski signed by Trajkovski on the right hand side.
Macedonia must gather its strength and rise above this depression caused by paradox and irony, and transform the events from sources of desperation and hopelessness into new verticals of Macedonian gathering of hope and optimism. It will be hard to achieve. Fatalism has been introduced in the masses. It seems like there is a vile destiny on the dark horizons, which include the assassination attempt on Gligorov, the war in 2001, the catastrophic transition effects, or the fact that the Macedonian President is flying in a crippled plane in order to meet up the expectations of the petit bourgeois public, which continues to believe that state building makes sense only if it is a cheap business. There are many other bad things, such as the total deformation of all important national institutions and entities under partisan and other non-expert pressure and interests, creating the grounds for catastrophes of this rang.
The negative implications of the Mostar tragedy are seen in a close perspective. The Macedonian domestic and foreign policy agenda will be subjected to many serious changes, the priority list will be turned vice versa. We will enter a disbalance between the policies and the institutions on both domestic and foreign policy plan, while the area for various interventions, activities and expectations of all anti-Macedonian positions will be enlarged. There will be entities that will view Macedonia as a Balkan problem, not a solution to the same. It is a great historical challenge, new testing grounds for Macedonia in its attempt to prove maturity in being a historical subject and become a part of Europe. We did not receive the European Union questionnaires in Dublin, but we did receive a big questionnaire in Mostar. If we answer well, we will definitely go to Europe. Macedonia is entitled to expect assistance by Europe, the US, Russia, China and especially the neighboring states, in surpassing these dramatic problems. The region is sensitive to these problems and it will react one way or another. This reaction encouraged Serbia in a few political orientations following the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. This reaction calmed Macedonia after the attempted assassination of President Kiro Gligorov. We can only hope the reaction will now be equal. At the same time, this is a test for the Macedonian political elite, Macedonia’s intellectual and wider public.
Macedonia entered this year hoping to hold regular presidential elections. Following Trajkovski’s tragedy, the election deadline will be moved forward, although no one can exclude the possibility of endless masterminding and combinations. There are no dilemmas that immediately after the plane crash, all political, party, personal lobby, internal and foreign interests and ambitions regarding the Macedonian presidential chair were activated. Four issues are essential in this occasion. Firstly, the acting President, i.e. the present President of the Assembly, should perform the new duty strictly in accordance to the Constitutions and the laws. He should maximally accelerate all procedures that are in his authority.
Secondly, the presidential elections and campaign should not block the remaining political and institutional activity. On the contrary, the activities should be performed fully regularly, even above the expected level. Thirdly, it is expected that the Macedonian institutions, political parties and politicians should accelerate the electoral processes, based on the sense that this is an exceptionally important event with possible repercussions on the country’s stability and perspectives. Finally, the electoral process should demonstrate that Macedonia, in a large part, is determined on the new, contemporary, pro-European policies of equality and democracy, without national or any other exclusiveness. It should demonstrate its conviction in the Ohrid Agreement foundations and the constitutional changes, as well as the notion that the revisionists are a marginal category, which will not obstruct the meeting of the European norm.
Trajkovski’s last political and statehood act was the ratification of the Third State University Decree, which included an utterly important justification. It reflects most convincingly the Macedonian multiethnic reality and the building of real policy, stemming from reality and positively changing that reality. Macedonia must continue with his reasoning, this approach, and this political orientation.
