This is a telegram to the Macedonian public, without circumventions, without stylization, direct and honest: We have to have a clean referendum, a massive citizen assertion on whether we want to have a European future, or remain in the Balkan bloody swamp.
This means that this essential democratic process has to be separated from all other issues. The referendum on the name is an issue of highest national interest, it unites all citizens, all communities that live in Macedonia. It is a historic opportunity to leave the FYROM past behind us, all of us together.
Therefore, there is no time or space for other issues, hence not even for the law on the use of languages. The issue of the use of languages all of a sudden became important to DUI upon joining into the new parliamentary majority and the government, even though they could have resolved it in the times of twinning with VMRO-DPMNE.
They need to raise that question outside of the referendum context. The Albanians in Macedonia are free and equal citizens, and not a trump card in Ahmeti’s sleeve. This became clear to him at the early parliamentary elections in 2016. That is how it will remain. Zaev needs to tell this to his coalition partner, if he hasn’t already done it.
The referendum is a voting of citizens, and not of Macedonians, Albanians, Turks, Roma, Serbs, Vlachs, Jews, Croats, Egyptians, Christians, Muslims, atheists and others that live in the country. This is a matter of citizen support for strengthening the state in which everyone lives, both as individuals and as members of different communities.
Nationalists have to stop sowing hatred and violence, because that is against the law, against the Constitution, and against morality. They also need to be held accountable for their actions both before the public and the law. We have stepped into Europe with giant steps; that is why impunity for destruction has to stop. There is no amnesty for the premeditated crime and violence.
Russian agents and those who are on their payroll can save money, time, nerves and breath. They will fail. Macedonian citizens are not afraid of a handful of lumpen politicos and radicals that the Russian espionage structures are supporting, while Mickoski and the Family are leading the folk dance with the hope that they will get away from justice. The citizens are the ones who will take the future into their own hands.
Everyone has an equal vote, and the referendum ballot has no ethnic or political affiliation. The senseless radicals will try, but will not succeed to even convince themselves that the “Shiptars changed their name”, because it is not and cannot be true. The decade-long policy of trading with ethnic cards became history in December 2016, and will never return anymore. We live in a colorful, civil, contemporary, European society. That is the first and the last argument. The radicals and Russian bachushkas will fail.
The campaign on the referendum has to be fair, with honest cross-examination of arguments, with an obligation of the state and its institutions to provide conditions for unhindered exercise of the right to vote – for everyone equally. That is why they (institutions) have to begin with their work as soon as possible and provide all the conditions for a clean, honest and dignified referendum, since this country deserves that, after returning to the leading position in the Balkans just one year after the fall of the criminal regime.
