By XHABIR DERALLA
“Are you in favor of abandoning the importance of the Law on Ratification of the Agreement on Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria…” – is the new referendum question of Gruevski’s party, which Mickoski has been unsuccessfully leading for five years.
What a talent! I don’t know who advised him or if this is his idea, but the referendum initiative itself and, even more, the referendum question are another nail in the political coffin of Mickoski and those around him. In any other circumstances, in any other society with a slightly more developed political and media culture, neither Mickoski nor his party would have survived this serious political blunder (to put it mildly).
It is obvious that the Kremlin has lost its attention or completely abandoned its protégées in the country, because even their apprentices in the propaganda department do not make such rookie mistakes. Здравствуй, Кремль, ты нас слышишь? It is not the Kremlin in question? Ah!
Anti-European initiative
The very idea of a referendum is anti-European and even more – anti-Macedonian. It comes at a time when the country, along with the whole world, is facing difficult existential challenges, while Mickoski and the party are dealing with the Good Neighbor Agreement with Bulgaria. Basically, they are just implementing their agenda, which has nothing to do with Macedonian national interests. The reactions, rightly so, are extremely ironic. Among others, such is the question: When they are already dealing with the demolition of interstate agreements – why only the one with Bulgaria and not the Prespa Agreement? Fear, immaturity or…?
President Pendarovski, otherwise a top intellectual and analyst himself, clearly “deciphers” the referendum question:
“We received a question that, in essence, means that Macedonian citizens are going to be asked if they want to stop the EU integration process.”
Touché!
Whose cabal is this?
What does “abandonment” of an agreement mean? Neither politically nor legally, this expression means nothing. And the referendum would be mandatory, Mickoski decided, or whoever decides there, in the White Palace (party’s HQ nickname). Assuming that it is successful, the institutions of the state (first of all, the Parliament) will have the duty to do – what? In what way and what after that? As many times before, the strong “legal” names in the team of the “precise mathematician” Mickoski (as he describes himself) once again showed incomprehensible dilettantism.
Really, whose cabal is the latest Mickoski embarrassment? Russian? Bulgarian? Russo-Bulgarian? Maybe the plotters and those who aspire to Mickoski’s party throne are setting him up? All together? Perhaps Zoran Zaev and Dimitar Kovachevski (former and current PMs) planted this onto him, to “help” him commit political suicide? Or Gruevski (former VMRO-DPMNE leader), while munching on expensive cheeses and prosciutto in his Budapest chambers, with his mouth full, did not speak clearly enough, when Mickoski visited him at the end of July.
Failed demonstrations and melting of “European” masks
Let’s remember. Mickoski, together with his younger ideo-political brother, Apasiev, launched violent, ultra-nationalist demonstrations in July against the European proposal to overcome the dispute with Bulgaria. Surprisingly (not too much), they were joined by a number of NGO chiefs, intellectuals and media editors who live comfortably on European money. Indeed, many “European” masks melted and disfigured under the July sun…
They took out a guillotine and abused a domestic animal in front of the parliament. While they protested against the Bulgarian veto, they shouted “Death to Shiptari (pejorative for Albanians)” and “Clean Macedonia” (did they forget the topic?). They called for a new April 27 (violent assault by the nationalists on the Parliament in 2017)…
But the demonstrations were losing intensity and scope every day (they died out), so that on the eve of the vote in the parliament on July 16, they were reduced to a handful of dead-drunk characters who were not aware of where they were and what they were doing on the lawn in front of the parliament.
Victory for the nation, defeat for the nationalists
A three-day debate followed, in which we heard meaningless opposition speeches in which only serious threats, nationalist hatred and a thirst for power could be recognized. When the government officials spoke, they played vuvuzelas. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also came to give a speech in the parliament, but she received hostile treatment by the opposition. And in the end, they didn’t vote.
The European (also known as the French) proposal won with 68 votes FOR and NOT ONE VOTE AGAINST.
Three days later, the Macedonian and Albanian Prime Ministers, Dimitar Kovacevski and Edi Rama, held press conferences in Brussels and marked the beginning of EU membership negotiations. A great victory for the nation. A heavy political defeat for the anti-Western radicals and national chauvinists.
When plan B is worse than plan A
The eternally frowning Mickoski and the hysterical Apasiev (chief of a small ultra-right party) had a “plan B” – a referendum. Worse than “plan A”, definitely.
Perhaps Mickoski believes that the idea of a referendum will help him heal the political “wounds” from the debacle in July. Perhaps he believes that this is another step in the campaign to come to power. Wrong. Very wrong.
Mickoski and Apasiev may have an anti-European, nationalist and pro-Russian agenda, but they are (actually) unwillingly working for the benefit of Kovacevski’s government.
Strange are the ways… to the EU.
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