Republic of Macedonia
Republic of MacedoniaOn the other hand, the Liberals themselves, ever since their emerging, are in a latent, but continuous conflict with every one around them, repeatedly pointing out their goals, ideas and projects are mined, their contribution is underestimated, or, simply, they are being unjustifiably neglected. Their recent especially increased rivalry with the coalition partner SDSM at times even presented threat to the survival of the govt itself. The Liberals even accused the media of being under strong influence of SDSM. Thus, a pretty much contradictory situation was created within the Liberal party itself -- on one hand, it considerably participated in the executive governing with the country, through 3 very significant govt bodies (foreign relations, economy and public health), and, on the other, the party was continually dissatisfied and critical towards the govt.
The Liberal Party was founded on October 5, 1990, under the name of "Alliance of Reform Forces in Macedonia", i.e., a name and a symbol identical with the Alliance of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia, led by the then Prime Minister of Federal Yugoslavia, Ante Markovic. It must be pointed out, however, that the Macedonian branch of the party, differently from the other branches in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Vojvodina, registered as an autochtonous party, formally not being a "daughter" of the centre in Belgrade, which practically never came to existence as a united Yugoslav political substitute for the communist party. Yet, the ex-Yugoslav prime minister undoubtedly had a great impact on the party, not only as a father of the Alliance's Program (purely economical orientation), but also through his direct influence over voters in Macedonia, which he visited several times during his elections campaign. It is an indisputable fact that it was exactly the popularity of Ante Markovic that had a great merit in the Macedonian Liberals' elections success -- it gained 18 seats in Parliament. Following Markovic's fall, the Macedonian branch was left on its own to defend, create and shape its political identity and image under the newly emerged conditions. It is also worth noticing that, apart from Macedonia, where this party is fourth in power, reformers in all republics of the former Yugoslavia ended as a total fiasco. Interestingly enough, the party marked its first "bull's eye" in Kavadarci, winning all 3 local parliament seats. In Negotino, it won one, in Kocani 2 out of 3 seats, just like in Stip, in Bitola 3 out of 9 seats, in Skopje 3 out 32, and one in Prilep, Kumanovo and Vinica. As a reminder, the party then acted in a coalition with the Young Democratic Progressive Party, led by the ex-youth leader Risto Ivanov, as well as with a certain Association of Craftsmen of Stip. They definitely melted into one single party at the First Annual Conference in July, 1991, when the party was renamed into Reform Forces in Macedonia -- Liberal Party (RSM-LP). Yet another curiosity is linked to the Liberals, as far as election results are concerned. It is the only political group to have been enlarged for one deputy (the party was left only by Gjulistana Markovska, but joined by Blagoja Ckatroski and Dimitar Trpenovski), which by all means is an indicator of the party's internal stability and cohesion.
The party was finally shaped during last June's regular assembly, when it definitely launched its name of a Liberal Party of Macedonia. Logically, it was followed by a so-called New Interelection Program, which also presents a final development of the primary party policy.
The party evolution and steps of adjustment to new conditions and times can most easily be observed in its program and, above all, in its public political engagement through behaviour in Parliament, public announcements, and several press- conferences, held to state the party's views on current problems in the country.
One thing is certain -- the Liberals very well installed themselves in the ruling coalition. Besides a position of a parliament president for the party leader Stojan Andov, the Liberal party has several of its members on high positions in the govt -- Stevo Crvenkovski as a foreign minister, Gordana Siljanovska, as a minister without resource, Petrus Stefanov, minister of economy , and Jovan Tofovski, minister of public health. The party also has 4 members working as deputy ministers in: the interior ministry, the ministry of science and culture, ministry of development, and, until not a long ago (until Risto Ivanov resigned), the Liberals had a member vice- president of the govt. All of this indicates this party's intention to and need of actively participating in the power and in creating Macedonia's internal and foreign politics. It is characteristic for this party that it is a very active initiator of new ideas and projects, which is often a reason for its misunderstanding and conflicts with its coalition partners.
Evolution of the party's program is linear -- it sticks to its primary focusing on economy and its development. The difference between the primary and newest programs is only in completion and stating even more precisely the party's basic strategic direction of economic development. Besides its determination to improve democratic processes, equal human rights for all and parliamentary democracy, the Liberal Party firmly insists on speeding up the economic development through principles of private ownership, as a main force in this development. Shortly, the main accent is on open-market economy, which the Liberals indeed fought for ever since the beginning. Today, the party has 5 main goals: 1) Realisation of Macedonian statehood, with free, equal, economically well-situated citizens; 2) Implementation of a society on basis of a civilian status of the citizens; 3) Europesation and global modernising of Macedonian industrial, economic, social and cultural spheres of life; 4) Creation of a strong, high-productive and efficient economy, to be included in world market and European integration, through private and collective enterprises and market mechanisms; and 5) Creation of a united Macedonian cultural and ethnic space, through open Balkan borders, but also secured rights for ethnic Macedonians in neighbouring states, including the internationalisation of the issue. Not only through its program, but also through its declarative sphere of activities, this party characterises itself as a party of the centre, with an especially stressed "hygienic distance" from nationally-oriented parties and diametrically opposed to ultra-left groups. The Liberal party itself excludes the Social Democrats from the last group. On the contrary, they regard them as a kind of a left centre, and these two parties already announced a possible joint appearance at the coming elections. In any case, the Liberal party considers itself to be a defender of the true interests of the Macedonian people, as they are realisable only through developing the economy and basic human rights.
As much as the Liberals wish to highly regard their own party, however, polls show the party's popularity is in a continual downfall.
In order to determine the specific characteristics of the Liberal Party, it is necessary to dwell on its relation towards other parties, especially towards the coalition partners, and the party's reactions to some "ad hoc" problems and views on certain matters. Indicators for the party's internal cohesion, stability and power are also affairs and/or scandals within the party, characteristic for literaly all Macedonian political parties.
The Liberal Party today is most certainly an authentic and specific political group, regardless of its having origins in Ante Markovic's Alliance of Reform Forces. It acts as a serious political exponent, with its own clearly stated views, positions and initiatives. What is even more important, this party is very successful in preserving its level of political consistency, by ocassionally criticising the govt, despite its own participation in it. On the other hand, the party's parliamentary deputies, although participants in the parliament majority, have, on several occasions, "flirted" with the opposition during voting or discussions, which leads to a conclusion that Liberals can easily sit on the fence. All of this, in a final version, if judged by previous polls among citizens, results in a sudden downfall in the party's rating. The Liberals are apparently supposed to represent the political centre between left and right parties. The Liberal party problem seems to lie in the dilemma of how to build a separate identity in such a narrow space for political manouevres. The mutual simpathies between SDSM and the Liberals started during the time of Nikola Kljusev's administration, the same one that was brought down mainly on initiatives by exactly these two parties. These two parties' corresponding views and positions were the key factor in their decision to form a govt coalition, along with PDP and SP. Nonetheless, their "love" started cracking up soon afterwards, and differences in views seemed to be largest on two subjects -- transformation of the Govt Auditing Office and of the police, both initiated by the Liberals. Over two and a half years ago, the Liberals raised the question of necessary changes in the auditing office, explaining Macedonia cannot change the nature of ownership if it keeps previous state institutions. According to the Liberal party, the Govt Auditing Office is an artificial state creation, and the balance of payment in the country will never be really balanced unless this institution is closed down. The Liberals suggested the institution be merged with business banks, but this met with a strong opposition by the other coalition partners, to be followed with rumours that all the Liberals want was, in fact, to protect their companies and directors.
The second, and much more radically intensified conflict between the Liberals and their govt partners was linked with an initiative for transformation of the Iinterior Ministry. This inititative had even been determined in the Liberal party's Platform of 1992. What really happened? The Liberals openly claimed that the interior ministry, as an institution, and by its form and structure, was inheritted from the former real- socialist state, that the police has an enormous influence over creating the political atmosphere in Macedonia, and even over the economy, political parties and part of the media. In an answer to this, the interior minister publically stated there were no conceptual differences in transforming the ministry, but it was all an artificially imposed climate of disagreement and misunderstandings. Such open debates between the Liberals and the police went on for almost half a year, only to culminate last September, when Liberals sustained from voting on confidence for the interior minister, which was interpreted in the public as an announcement for desintegration of the govt coalition.
Yet, spirits had started to calm down several months before that, after the failure to organise urgent new elections, for which exactly the Liberals were generaly blamed. In this period, the leader of the Liberals, Stojan Andov, gave a public statement for the Serbian paper "Borba", which had a shocking effect -- among other things, Andov said democratic processes in Macedonia experienced a slowdown. He pointed out the processes of organising the state were unjustifiably delayed, a number of system laws was unnecessarily postponed, and all initiatives and proposals by the Liberal party were simply put aside -- not rejected, but also not dwelt on. In his last year's interview for the paper "Nova Makedonija", Andov said: "We think the attitude towards our party is unforgivably bad. The party is being pushed aside and we are very suspectful of certain parties' intentions. Such a strategy is being used by those circles in SDSM, which would like to see our party fallen apart. They believe all voters in Macedonia must be divided into extremely right-oriented and social democrats." All this was happening in last year's July-October period, when the Liberals and Social Democrats entered a phase of a most intensified conflict, and when the public was flooded with claims the coalition was faced with a definite split, as a result of serious quarrels between the two parties on who to be appointed to key minister and companies' managing positions, and mutual accusations of controlling the media; these were definitely signs of a deep govt crisis. Yet, things somehow stopped here, and the Liberals seemed to have made a significant step out of the SDSM shade.
The Liberal party very successfully kept its internal crisis away from the eyes of te public, and this is generally believed to be a merit of the authoritative leader Andov. Mrs Gjulistana Markovska's leaving the party deputy group is one of rare such cases. She accused the party leader of despotism and close co- operation only with a narrow and confidential circle of members, but this met with no comment by the accused. Yet, the public marked several cases linked to the Liberal party, which at moments were even close to being qualified as scandals and affairs. Most remarkable among them was certainly last year's traffic accident of Stojan Andov, during his trip to Ohrid, on the Skopje--Tetovo road, when his official Mercedes was turned over. He and his party's committee expressed an open suspicion in the police official explanation of reasons for the accident, thus giving birth to all kinds of comments in the public. The Liberal party was also in the centre of attention during the open confrontations between Zoran Krstevski (director of the public enterprise for airport services and a Liberal, even coordinator of the party's parliament group at one time) and Antoni Pesev (then minister of city planning, construction, traffic and ecology), on choosing a kerosene supplier for the Macedonian airports. Out of the 5 candidates, the choice fell on Risto Gusterov (member of the Liberal Party Committee and a very successful businessman of an international reputation), who, along with "Makpetrol" and the Skopje refinery, was the only one to fulfill the required conditions. Minister Pesev's remark that such a decision is not legal without previously formed board of management of the Public Transport Enterprise, was openly opposed by Krstevski, and the spectators observed the Liberals succeeded in this way to deviate from the govt official politics (with the help of the influence Liberals have in the transport company).
And, finally, the last scandal is linked to Risto Ivanov, ex- vice-president in the govt (and a member of the highest leadership of the Liberals), in regard to his letters to the District Public Prosecutor's Office and the Skopje District Court II, sent last September. Ivanov requested to be informed on the progress of the investigation and grounds for deciding to imprison a certain judge for receiving bribe. In his answer, the court's president expressed surprise with the tone in Ivanov's letter, reminding the latter of of the constitutional division of power into legislative, executive and judicial. Several days later, the same conclusion was repeated by Tuse Gosev, Minister of Justice, who described the whole mattere as a "legal ingorance by vice-president Ivanov." Apart from all disputes, conflicts and affairs, the Liberal party as a whole must be accepted as a real and very active political factor in the country, with clearly determined ideas and position. Its motto "The Capable Will Succeed With Us" is attractive for quite a number of intellectuals and businessmen, who joined it. The Liberals themselves do not miss an opportunity to point out they have attracted the biggest number of successful businessmen, especially from the private sector. Another fact used by the Liberals to stress the specific nature of their party is that it is the only party in the country to have been accepted internationally -- it is an accompanying member of the Federation of European Liberal, Democratic and reform Parties.
The elections are approaching and the Liberal party is faced with an uncertainty in the outcome. Stojan Andov has his own opinion on this: "We are a serious party and believe we rank highly among the citizens, as our membership consists of honest people, who know what they want and, more importantly, do everything in their power to achieve it." According to him, the numerous misinformation, launched in the public against the Liberal party, only show that certain circles in the govt are already afraid of what the Liberals can do at the upcoming elections. In spite of all this, the party President Andov announced a possibility the Liberals might join forces with SDSM, as these two parties, he says, have proved to be able to remain firmly on the true way to democratic development of the Republic of Macedonia.
