After Gruevski’s “ velvet coup”, Republic of Macedonia should expect a deepening of the political crisis and even more uncertain fate. In the statement given for CIVIL on January 12, analyst Saso Ordanoski estimated that “the conditions are important, and not the date of the elections”, claiming that conditions for holding free elections on April 24, 2016 are far from being created. CIVIL in its analysis of January 10, also came to that conclusion, along with around 70 civil society organizations, which requested postponement of the date scheduled for elections with a letter sent to the international community.
Today, Saso Ordanoski made the following statement for CIVIL:
[youtube width=”600″ height=”400″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlyACVMZ7xY[/youtube]
The events in Macedonia continue to take place in the direction of the struggle between the political and legal state. This is the only winning combination for the government, so as in this combination to have the political state win over the legal state. The insistence on going to unprepared elections, for which it is clear to everyone both at home and abroad that these elections can’t be fair and democratic, is part of something that is putting pressure for gaining time for shortening the possibility for the legal state to come up with its findings. When I say legal state, I refer to the Special Public Prosecutor. Thus, in that sense, every day lost for the legal state is a day gained for the political state.
Therefore, if someone is trying to understand what happens next, then they should deal less with all the folkloristic elements of politics and how things will be carried out within the framework of this project that Gruevski has obviously developed, and should concentrate more on what is happening with the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office, and with foreign reaction, not just domestic, in regards to the Special Public Prosecutor. The Public Prosecutor herself set a deadline, mid-March, for when she will most probably bring out the allegations that are already being prepared, but it is obvious that Gruevski’s political state is trying in every possible way to either annul or delay this deadline, or in a certain way to redefine it.
I think that in this sense they will go all the way. The ending would be the card that they are still holding in their hands, and that is the constitutional denial of the possibility for the legal existence of the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office. They would probably do this only as an ultimate alternative. In the meanwhile, they will use every possible obstruction, through money, people, places, cutting of time, judicial obstructions in order to, in some way, stall Katica Janeva in her legally entrusted task of bringing the accusations. And there will be dozens of them, in which there will be people undoubtedly involved in very serious criminal circumstances, the greatest part from the team that is now in power in Macedonia.
And, that is the race. If the legal state manages to achieve some kind of intervention, an essential one, on the events taking place in Macedonia, then this will be another stepping stone upon which to stand in order to continue democracy in Macedonia. However, should Gruevski succeeds to silence it, to suppress the role of the legal state, then he and his propaganda machine will undoubtedly prevail in forthcoming events in Macedonia.
The choice is simple: watch what is happening with Katica Janeva.
