The political situation in Macedonia is delicate, and it seems that there is a reason for the complications in the process of building the government coalition.
The VMRO-DPMNE party has been the winner of the elections and won 51 MPs, while the SDSM party won 49 MPs. Until this elections all parties respected the unwritten rule of a coalition between the winning Macedonian party and the party of the Albanians with highest number of seats in the parliament. But now it seems that this principle has been put to the test.
The winning Albanian party is BDI with 10 MPs, but was unsuccessful in its negotiations with VMRO-DPMNE. So is BDI going to join in a coalition with SDSM? And furthermore, will the BDI make that coalition and abandon the long-lasting principle of coalition between the winners of the elections because they believe SDSM will deliver more, or because Ali Ahmeti is under threat of the SDSM?
We ask this question because under the surface of the “coalition games,” there are some very low strikes, blackmails, and threats mainly aimed at Ahmeti. Ahmeti, the leader of BDI, said that he will ask for a written offer of the SDSM, which should include all they are offering for coalition with them. Shortly after his statement, SDSM MP Pavle Bogoevski publicly threatened the BDI leadership and Ahmeti personally.
The SDSM leadership thinks that Ahmeti and his BDI should beg them for coalition, and that, if they don’t, they would threaten them with the Special Prosecutor, who is known to be very close to SDSM and its party leader Zoran Zaev. The Special Prosecutor is not working on the basis data, facts, and proofs, and doesn’t prosecute the ones who suspected to be guilty. However, it does prosecute those that Zoran Zaev thinks should be prosecuted, either because they are political opponents or, like Ahmeti, because they should be under threat to create a government with him.
“Does Ali Ahmeti know that there is no political calculation that will have an outcome which will protect members of BDI from eventual persecution by the Special Prosecutor?,” Bogoevski wrote on his Facebook profile.
This is a proof that the Special Prosecutor is the “right hand” of SDSM.
“Not even Ahmeti, nor the whole leadership of BDI could escape from the moral, political, or even criminal responsibility that will follow,” Bogoevski threatened Ahmeti, who continues to refuse to respond to SDSM’s offer to create a government. And Bogoevski is someone chosen by chance; he was head of last year’s protests in Skopje, which were artificially called the “Colorful Revolution.” He is paid by Soros and works for the Soros NGOs in Macedonia. So the message from Bogoevski to Ahmeti is message from Zaev and Soros, simply meaning “either you will beg us to join the coalition, or the Special Prosecutor will prosecute you! It does not matter if you are guilty or not, did something wrong or not, the Special Prosecutor will do that because we (Zaev and Soros) say so.”
Just like in the darkest days of the Tito’s Yugoslav regime, when it prosecuted Albanians and Macedonians who were against his regime.
The political experts are underlining that this is very dirty and undignified blackmail form SDSM, and that only BDI will decide whether they are going to succumb under the threats.
“Does Ahmeti know that the only reason he is in the spotlight is because Macedonia needs BDI MPs, but not because someone believes in his democratic capacities? Now is the time when he should beg for a new chance, and we are not the ones who should ask for help,” Bogoevski wrote.
When the political crisis was in its beginnings, the SDSM party released phone conversations of VMRO-DPMNE officials, but also BDI officials, which were also released on social networks. The only ones who had those conversations, and publicly stated that he had them, was SDSM leader Zoran Zaev.
“No one has the right to trade with the Albanian dignity. I am not going to allow that to happen,” Ali Ahmeti said.
On the elections held in December, BDI won 86 000 votes, and now the Macedonian and regional public is waiting for Ahmeti to make a move. Will he be mature and smart as he describes he is, or he will succumb under threats of SDSM and beg for mercy as Bogoevski says we’ll see very soon.
