Macedonia PM tries to weather 'astounding' storm

Nikola Gruevski, Macedonia’s 44-year old PM, portrays himself as the man who made created an economic boom.

He brought in foreign capital, reduced unemployment, and the European Commission has, since 2010, backed the opening of accession talks.

But he’s also responsible for a political crisis which puts it all at risk.

Twelve hours of talks with opposition leaders and EU officials in Brussels broke off on Wednesday (10 June) with no deal.

The commission is so annoyed it’s washing its hands of the process.

Its next move is to send Skopje a list of “hard-hitting” rule-of-law reforms. If it doesn’t see swift action, its backing for EU entry talks could end.

“With or without the EU, we have to continue our discussions in Macedonia”, Gruevski told EUobserver on Thursday.

Zoran Zaev, the Macedonian opposition leader, said: “We made some progress, but not enough”.

“We’re caught between two fires”, Artan Grubi, the chief-of-staff of Ali Ahmeti, an Albanian opposition leader, who was also in Brussels, said on the Gruevski-Zaev clash.

Disagreement

They had agreed, on 2 June, to hold early elections in April.

But now they can’t agree when Gruevski should step down.

Zaev says he should go in October so that a technocratic government can prepare a fair vote. He says if he doesn’t, the new election will be “another robbery”.

Gruevski wants to stay until the last minute.

He told this website, citing a poll by a Skopje university, that people “trust” him to prepare the new election. “If elections were held now, the citizens would pick us to continue to lead the country”.

The crisis dates to February, when Zaev began to leak a cache of intelligence wire-taps.

Wherever they come from, they reveal what EU sources call “gross … systemic abuse of power”.

The wire-taps show that Gruevski rigged elections, for instance, by intimidating public sector workers to vote for him.

They show he used courts to attack political opponents. In one incident, he ordered the demolition of a €16 million construction project linked to the owner of an opposition TV channel.

They also show corruption in public tenders and the cover-up of a police killing.

“Gruevski thinks he can weather the storm. But in any Western European country, not just the interior minister, but the whole government would have resigned”, an EU source said.

“It’s astounding that he’s still there.”

Kumanovo

Things got worse in May, when Gruevski ordered a police raid on ethnic-Albanian “terrorists” in the town of Kumanovo, causing 22 deaths.

Zaev accuses him of doing it to create “fear” to mask the wire-tap scandal.

“This is not true. It’s speculation with no-good intentions”, Gruevski noted.

He also dismissed the wire-taps, saying: “Maybe some individuals out of the control of the party made some negative steps, and we’re ready to investigate this. But generally, it [abuse of power] isn’t something that was massively done.”

He’s launched an investigation into the wire-tap revelations and a second one into Kumanovo.

International institutions are free to “monitor” the process. But they can’t take part behind the scenes.

“Everybody is invited to follow the court procedure. Everybody will have acces to the information … The OSCE, for instance, is welcome to monitor the court procedure”.

Absurd

The result so far is that Zaev risks prison for leaking the information.

But after four and a half months, prosecutors haven’t charged anyone in the Gruevski elite.

Zaev told EUobserver the situation is “absurd”.

He said if Gruevski is guilty of the things the wire-taps show, then he should go to jail.

“If we had an independent judicial system, there would be a very powerful investigation and if it uncovered criminal activity, then everyone would be held accountable”, he noted.

“There should be no amnesties or special privileges”.

Joke

For its part, the Albanian opposition is trying to stay out of what it calls an “intra-ethnic” clash.

Grubi also called for international participation in the wire-tap and Kumanovo probes.

The political crisis aside, Macedonia’s EU and Nato entry process is being blocked by Greece, in a veto which relates to an old name dispute.

But Grubi warned that if people lose faith in accession “the crisis could shift from being intra-ethnic to inter-ethnic”.

“The euro-Atlantic path is the only thing keeping us together. Otherwise we’re just too different in terms of language, culture,” he said.

“If there’s no future in that, it endangers inter-ethnic relations, and if you endanger ethnic relations, then you make the current crisis look like a joke”.