“The rhetoric that SDSM uses today is the one from VMRO-DPMNE used from the 90s, let’s say, to 2000, whereas the rhetoric that VMRO-DPMNE uses, is SDSM’s from the 90’s!”, said Ljubco Georgievski, founder and honorary president of VMRO-DPMNE and current President of VMRO-MP, in a conversation with CIVIL Media.

CIVIL MEDIA: Mr. Georgievski, do you have information on what is happening in VMRO-DPMNE, in regards to the constitutional changes having been voted, the resignations and the exclusions in the party?

GEORGIEVSKI: I do not have that many sources of information, because, unfortunately, you know that the cadre structure in VMRO-DPMNE has changed quite a bit. Many of those people I do not know very much, and I can give you an analysis based on the information that is being presented in the public.

According to what I see, first, I must say that despite the cadre changes that took place even before this crisis in VMRO-DPMNE, I expected for something different to happen ideologically in VMRO-DPMNE. Unfortunately, I still cannot see that to this day, I see that the rhetoric in VMRO-DPMNE is still the rhetoric that, unfortunately, Mr. Nikola Gruevski entered into the party. That is the ideological matrix, those are the ideas, and somehow it is hard to leave that ideological residue that was characteristic for VMRO-DPMNE for 11 years. Hence, this struggle of excluding MPs, I must say that I experience more as a struggle with peripheral things, and not as some essential changes…Are some people bound by something, are they conditioned with something, I do not know…So, it is not a matter of a real ideological transformation of the party. Unfortunately, VMRO-DPMNE today continues with a rhetoric that for me is surpassed, ended and passed. I, as a person who has founded the party, having incorporated myself in that party, personally regret that my ideas and my understandings about Macedonia are recognized today more by people of SDSM, and now, normally as their own, they highlight them and fight for those ideas. Whereas the party I created, speaks in a different rhetoric. If we make a comparison, I cannot but not notice the criticism – that the rhetoric that SDSM uses today is the one VMRO-DPMNE used from the 90s, let’s say – until 2000, whereas the rhetoric that VMRO-DPMNE uses, is SDSM’s from the 90s.

I simply cannot help be wonder about all the process that have taken place in Republic of Macedonia…I feel sorry for what is happening, I feel sorry that the party that brought the concept of statehood in the 90’s today has turned into some kind of a gatherer of old stories, of some misconceptions about identity issues. And the feeling of statehood has been lost here somewhere along the way…And, all this, unfortunately, makes the party distant from me.

CIVIL MEDIA: If the Agreement with Greece does not succeed, does Macedonia have a “Plan B”?

GEORGIEVSKI: Perhaps this question was more crucial until fifteen days ago, as now we can see that certain problems have been overcome. Still, today there are enough MPs who would vote in the Macedonian Parliament in that direction as well, I am optimistic that this agenda will be carried out to the end. I do not see an obstacle at this moment that could cause for the constitutional amendments not to pass. However, a “Plan B” does depend only on Macedonia, but also on the international community. We can make all kinds of ideas and concepts, but those concepts and ideas need to be accepted by the international community, because we could have many big problems. I think that Macedonia does not have a real “Plan B”, what it would do if this Euro-Atlantic integration fails, and I also think that even the international community is not really prepared to make a policy specifically for Macedonia, and to give us space to develop in that direction. Therefore, I believe we do not have a “Plan B”. We have a clear agenda, our interest is joining the EU and NATO! As a state, as a nation, as citizens…, we established this very early, by creating an independent Macedonia and I believe now, once we have entered the road to that agenda, we need to finish it.

Angela Petrovska
Camera: Аtanas Petrovski
Editing: Аrian Mehmeti