Citizens Say No to Boundary Changes
In ‘Prospective poll turns up Macedonia heat’ by Nicholas Whyte, (European Voice, 2-8 September), Whyte imprecisely writes: “Macedonia’s peace process, which has brought stability to the small Balkan state since the end of the 2001 conflict, hit an unexpected snag …when opposition parties succeeded in gathering enough signatures to trigger a referendum on the most sensitive of the outstanding issues: the revision of local government boundaries.”
Whyte wants to portray the whole opposition as anti-reform, but it is difficult to accept his remarks when, according to a poll conducted by the influential Institute for Sociological Juridical and Political Research, 70% of Macedonian citizens oppose the political agreement of the coalition parties concerning the revision of the local government boundaries.
Moreover, 41 out of 123 municipal units organized local referenda proclaiming their will to preserve the local government boundaries and objecting to the new law.
Even municipalities inhabited by Macedonian Albanians and Macedonian Turks held such referenda.
In addition, various public policy experts argued that the new law would lead to weak communities, with a poorer economy which could increase inter-ethnic tensions.
Contrary to Whyte’s assertion in the opening sentence, the poorly prepared law is in itself a threat to the stability of the country.
VMRO-DPMNE accepts the responsibilities of the Ohrid framework agreement and its full implementation. We are in favour of fiscal and further administrative decentralization, but strongly oppose artificial divisions of the country along ethnic lines proposed by the government law on new territorial division.
We would like to see a well thought-out law on the local government boundaries taking into consideration both local and international perspectives.
However, to me, the most important issue is the appreciation of the will and the needs of all the citizens in the country regardless of their ethnic origin. The new law failed to address the concerns of citizens.
Nikola Gruevski
VMRO-DPMNE president
Skopje