The government of Hristijan Mickoski appointed Bojan Hristovski as the new Director of the Agency for National Security (ANS). This caused reactions in part of the public and the media, as Hristovski has performed party functions in VMRO-DPMNE, and this is contrary to the standards of this institution that is important for the security of the state.
According to the Law on the ANS, a member of a political party does not have the right to be a Director of the Agency, and until recently, Hristovski held a specific party position – President of the City Committee of VMRO-DPMNE for Skopje.
Moreover, in his biography is also the position Director of the Public Enterprise “City Parking” until September 2022, when he resigned following the conflict of current Mayor of Skopje Danela Arsovska with Mickoski and VMRO-DPMNE, the party that helped her to sit in the mayor’s chair.
University professor Vladimir Pivovarov says for CivilMedia that non-partisan people should be appointed in the Agency for National Security, that is, expert, professional and with integrity, because that service is at the service of the state and the citizens, and not the party that is in power.
“However, here, unfortunately, for 33 years, party servants have been appointed to leading positions and then we have unwanted things happen to us like, for example, mass wiretapping during the time of Sasho Mijalkov or Ljube Boshkoski. The ANS should be managed by a person who has integrity and knows their job. It’s like giving me a Rolls Royce to drive, and I don’t even know how to drive a Fico. In our country, the Constitution and the laws need to be respected, no more, no less. However, here, everything comes down to “put him – he’s our man”, Prof. Pivovarov said for CivilMedia.
As to the question regarding the early dismissal of Zarko Miloshevski, previous head of the ANS, Pivovarov says that the Government is the one that appoints and dismisses him as if he were an apple or a pear on the market.
“In serious countries, governments change, but not the people working in the services, because as they say there: I am a man of the state, not of the party”, stresses our interlocutor.
He adds that countries that have strong and non-partisan services, have strong security and a good economy, because the policies the governments there make rely on reports and data precisely from those services. He adds that here that is not the case, but rather “buy a day, sell a day”.
Zarko Miloshevski, was head of the institution in charge of security and counter-intelligence for almost two years. The previous government of SDSM and DUI appointed him as Director on December 14, 2022, and came to the position replacing Viktor Dimovski, who stepped down from the director’s chair in the ANS in order to go as ambassador to Paris, France, which did not happen.
The Government says that the new Director of the ANS, Hristvoski, resigned as a member of the party in 2023, without specifying exactly when.
But his party engagement on social media continues also in 2014. Below, we will publish just a few of Hristovski’s “non-partisan” statuses from 2024, after his party engagement ended in 2023.
SDSM opposes this, as they say, politicization of the security services and demand Hristovski be dismissed and a new director of the ANS be appointed. SDSM will inform the strategic partners, NATO member countries through their ambassadors and the European Commission.
According to SDSM, by appointing a person who only until 2023 was President of the City Committee of VMRO-DPMNE, this party directly violates Article 10 of the Law on the ANS.
Even if he has formally withdrawn from the party, the fact that until recently he held a senior party position is a clear indicator that this decision is purely partisan, unprofessional and contrary to the Law and international standards, especially the ones of NATO. Mickoski and DPMNE are returning the time of direct abuses of the security services for party purposes”, says opposition SDSM.
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski today stated that the Agency for National Security is not being politicized and that the newly appointed Director Bojan Hristovski was wronged in the past. That mistake, he says, is now corrected and now he has a security certificate.
According to Mickoski, when the Administration for Security and Counter-Intelligence was transformed into the Agency for National Security (ANS) and when the selection was made, as he said, there were former senior structures from the Agency for Intelligence, and in the Administration for Security and Counter-Intelligence and the ANS who profiled the people and based on that profiling they saw how to harm them through fake news and slanderous correspondence, abusing the institutions in which they work.
The Law on the ANS stipulates: Prohibition on membership in a political party, organs and bodies of a political party, political action and display of party symbols.
Article 144 reads: (1) An employee of the Agency must not be a member of a political party, organs and bodies of a political party, nor act politically; (2) The employee may not wear or display party symbols in the Agency premises or official vehicles, organize or perform party-related activities in the Agency.
The government did not explain why Miloshevski was dismissed, even though his term has not expired, nor did it explain why it is appointing Hristovski to this position, highly sensitive for the security of the state, despite the fact that only until recently he performed party functions – which is prohibited by the law.
Dehran Muratov
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
