Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

and DPA) have strongly criticized the
government as far as employment practices
in the administration and public
institutions are concerned. Public
administration, which needs to be
reduced by half, must also employ
more Albanians in order to reach the
"appropriate" number of them. DPA has
criticized DUI as a party in power for
allowing Albanians to be fired from
their jobs as well, since their percentage,
as foreseen by the agreement, hasn't
been reached. The arguments of the
current government are reasonable: a
large number of the appointments are
made according to political criteria and
many of the employees didn't have
appropriate agreements with the
employee. But firing an Albanian (even
to replace him with some other
Albanian), speaks loads about the discrepancies.
As far as this problem is
concerned, this is Government's indifference
towards explaining to citizens
that the Macedonians are not being
fired from their positions in public
administration so that the Albanians
can get in, but that the International
Monetary Fund is dictating this based
on their reviews of all the budget
parameters. On the other hand, it needs
to be explained more clearly that
Albanians are coming into the administration
in order to realize a right which
has been denied for decades. As the
leaders of DUI report, what can be considered
a success is the unprecedented
presence of Albanians in the higher
third echelon.
Five: there have been and there are
still efforts to ignore the Amnesty Law
by some judges and public prosecutors,
as well as by the police earlier when
Ljube Boshkovski was minister of
internal affairs. Some procedures did
not get to their appropriate court epilogue.
THE OHRID AGREEMENT
CANNOT FAIL
Despite all the possible criticisms
regarding the implementation dynamics,
the Ohrid Agreement is a political
project with a negligible chance of failure.
Regardless of the obstructions at
the beginning, all the obligations are
being passed one by one to the
Parliament for voting, albeit a bit late.
At the beginning, only the disarmament
of the NLA (as a symbolic political gesture)
and the constitutional changes
were done in time, whereas everything
else has been moving along at a very
slow pace. This was obviously influenced
by some very dramatic movements
within the opposition parties:
Ljubcho Georgievski's resignation, the
resignations of Arben Xhaferi and
Menduh Thachi and DPA's moratorium
from political life, which lasted from
April until July this year. Their absence
was not so productive, but their readiness
to see their obligations through
gives us hope that there won't be any
other serious obstructions. VMRO,
with its new leader, Nikola Gruevski
supports the agreement (contrary to
Georgievski, whose position was problematic
from time to time). DPA's ultimatums,
and DPP's subsequent ones,
created additional complications, but I
think the complications were mostly in
the eyes of the public rather than actual
ones. Both of them request full and
timely implementation of the
Agreement. DPA has announced that it
will start working towards the creation
of national states according to the principle
of self-determination, while DPP
says that it will activate political and
territorial autonomy available since
1991. From this stance of extreme ultimatums,
which contains many elements
of political posturing, it is clear
that they haven't given up on the Ohrid
Agreement after all. Harsh criticisms
from the OSCE, the EU, and the US
towards the positions of DPA's congress
on self-determination, clearly
underlines that the maneuvers to get out
of the political frame inaugurated in
Ohrid are quite minor. Any party that
would distance itself from the obligations
that come out from the signatures
of their leaders, risks marginalization
and isolation, especially by the international
institutions.
If we want to find out whether we
are happier then before, the answer is
problematic. Contrary to all the challenges
and the fragility of security in
the country, the situation in general can
be considered promising. We are far
from saying that the goal has been
achieved. One succession of negative
events, such as the large number of
criminal acts (murders, robberies, kidnappings…),
especially in the Albanian
surroundings, indicates the need to
work harder on getting back to normal
life. The upcoming autumn action for
weapons collection may be very useful,
but it will soon be proved that it will not
be fully realized either. The authorities
need to act more energetically (both the
police and judicial system) on the
investigation of the cases and punishment
for all criminal acts that have
already taken place or will happen in
the future.
As a conclusion, let us get back to
the trains. It is not the same, travelling
in an express or local train. The difference
is even more obvious if the passengers
board an express noticing only
later that the driver is stopping at every
local station. The passengers bought a
ticket for an express, so every delay
causes anxiety and brings on impatience.
The only satisfaction for the
passengers could be the conductor's
guarantee that no matter what the delay,
and though it was due in the morning,
the train will arrive by dusk.
The important thing is that it arrive.
(The author is a
journalist at Flaka)
135
Two years of the ohrid agreement, August 2003