Comment by Sasha Uzunov, Editor, Alternate Comms.
Ever since the Macedonian election brought centre-right conservative Macedonian political party, VMRO-DPMNE, to power and right wing Albanian Neo Nazi party DUI ejected from successive coalition governments, that have “run” (I use the word loosely – as the United States runs the show) Macedonia over the past 20 years, DUI has engaged in a deliberate campaign of destabilisation and dysfunction of the Macedonian state.
But to do that it must have been given the green light from the Kale, the term Macedonians use to refer to the United States Embassy. The US Embassy, a massive modern complex, psychologically, metaphorically, literally and strategically occupies the high ground overlooking the capital city Skopje, near the old Ottoman Fortress (Kale), a symbol of former Ottoman Imperial power.
DUI and its leader Ali Ahmeti, are 100% loyal to the United States. Any political move, it or Ahmeti makes or choreographs, has to be cleared with the US State Department first. To assume otherwise is naive.
The interesting thing is that Ahmeti’s Albanian opponents, the VLEN coalition of smaller Albanian parties that have joined forces and are now a partner in the Macedonian government led by Prime Minister Mickovski, despite hating Ahmeti personally share his ultra Albanian nationalist views. Arben Taravari, now the Health Minister from the Alliance for Albanians Party, has made fiery nationalistic statements. As has Billal Kasami from the Besa Movement party, a pretend Erdoganist party put together by the Dutch embassy, another US proxy in Macedonia.
The point being is the US has control and capture of both Albanian political blocs in Macedonia.
2024 Macedonia Parliamentary Election Result – 61 out of 120 seats forms government.
VMRO-DPMNE (Your Macedonia coalition including other parties Socialist party of Macedonia & Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia)
-Total 58 seats (55 for VMRO-DPMNE)
SDSM (For a European Future coalition including other parties New Social Democratic Party & Liberal Democratic party)
– Total18 seats (15 seats for SDSM)
DUI (European Front coalition including Alliance for Albanians (*led by Ziadin Sela), Democratic Party of Albanians, People’s Movement, Democratic Party of Turks, Turks Movement for Rights and Democracy)
– Total 18 seats (10 for DUI)
VLEN coalition consisting of Alliance for Albanians (*led by Arben Taravari), Besa Movement, Democratic Movement, Alternative.
– Total 14 seats
Levica total 6 seats
ZNAM total 6 seats – led by Maksim Dimitrievski, who broke away from SDSM.
POST-ELECTIONS – DUI’s spoiler activities. May 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary elections
Without rehashing in complete detail a previous story – Link here.
Suffice to say, DUI, is not a member of the new Macedonian coalition government led by the Macedonian party VMRO-DPMNE and its Albanian partner VLEN, a coalition- in itself- of a number of ethnic Albanian parties. DUI has been left out of government probably for the first time in two decades ever since its transformed from the Albanian right wing Albanian Neo Nazi militia which started a war in Macedonia in 2001 to a “civilian” ethnic Albanian party, albeit fiercely nationalistic and glorifying WWII Albanian Nazi ideology. Its outrageous behaviour has not troubled the US, because DUI is a loyal proxy.
However, DUI’s long time in government has led it to become deeply immersed in corruption which has led to some dissatisfaction within Albanian nationalistic circles, not over ideology but in the sharing of spoils of office, power and patronage.
Corruption is endemic and not confined to any particular ethnicity. Macedonian politicians are just as corrupt, greedy and arrogant as their Albanian counterparts.
WINNER WITH WINNER MUST COALESCE?
DUI’s anger is due to its being left out of the new government and claiming that the winning party from the ethnic Macedonian side must coalesce with the ethnic Albanian party that won the most votes. There is no law which requires this to take place, other than a party or coalition, regardless of ethnicity, can secure a working majority of 61 of the 120 seats in the Macedonian Parliament. A convention that has evolved is the leading Macedonian party will be joined by an ethnic Albanian party to form Macedonia’s government and minister portfolios are then shared out. For example the Macedonian Prime Minister is a Macedonian, Hristjan Mickovski, and the Parliamentary Speaker is an Albanian, Afrim Gashi, who controversially took the oath of office in Albanian first rather than in Macedonia.
DUI and its leader Ali Ahmeti have begun a destabilisation campaign against the Macedonian state, threatening to federalise the country, and using the controversial 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement, which the US engineered after the 2001 war in Macedonia in order to impose an Albanian proxy.
Ahmeti has gone to the extreme of hiring a US “expert” on international law .The pro VMRO-DPMNE newspaper, Republika, has put it thus:
“DUI is hiring international experts, including US law professor Paul Williams, who worked on the 2001 peace treaty, to draft this new proposal, which Ahmeti says will be modeled after Belgium and Northern Ireland. DUI will likely propose the creation of a majority Albanian region within Macedonia, which will lead to calls for future secession.”
The interesting thing is the US Embassy in Macedonia, and the US Ambassador Ms Angela Aggeler have remained silent over DUI’s behaviour, knowing full well that any talk of federalising Macedonia can only led to eventual partition.
There is absolutely no justification for it.
PRE ELECTION “TERROR” CAMPAIGN
Prior to the May 2024 elections in Macedonia, pro US pundits on the Macedonian side in Macedonia, issued warnings, not too subtle, about what would happen to those politicians who might “disobey” the US, in particular Hristjan Mickovski, the then leader of the main Opposition party in Macedonia and regarded in advance by all and sundry as winning the election because the then government led by SDSM (Macedonian Social Democrats) and its DUI partner were so on the noise with the electorate.
One such pundit, Blagojce Atanasoski – literally an unofficial mouthpiece for the US Embassy in Macedonia and saying the things that the Kale can’t say openly – let it be known in December 2023 that there could be deaths, assassinations, violence in a war for influence in the Balkans and Europe between the US and Russia. Atanasoski’s alarming rhetoric was so alarming that he was forced to walk it back. But the objective had been achieved. Now, it might be pure coincidence, pure chance, happenstance but within three to six months after Atanasoski’s warning came the failed assassination attempts on Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico and ex US President Donald Trump, who is contesting the 2024 US Presidential election.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the US through its proxies is waging a campaign to destabilise Macedonia, or more precisely keeping it dysfunctional, so as to appear as the political “savour” coming to the rescue.
BUSINESS AS USUAL – US’S DESTABLISATION & DISINTEGRATION OF MACEDONIA TO CONTINUE?
Putting aside all the hoopla and false euphoria about VMRO-DPMNE, the self appointed Macedonian “patriotic” centre-right party coming to power in Macedonia, it is now business as usual.
The Prime Minister elect Hristjan Mickovski and President elect Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, despite the fanfare in not using the US imposed prefix “North” on Macedonia, have largely fallen into line with the US Embassy in Macedonia, which runs the show.
Pledges to respect the 2018 Prespa Agreement, engineered by the US to change Macedonia’s name to get it into NATO by removing the Greek blockade, have been given.
Nothing happens in Macedonia without the US first knowing about it. Washington’s grip is firmly tight on the tiny Balkan state, so much so that it can issue Presidential Executive Orders that threaten anyone with being blacklisted if it dare touch the Prespa Agreement, an agreement which it claims it had nothing to do with drafting it.
In 2016 Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski was removed in a US financed soft coup called the “Colour Revolution” on the pretext of corruption but the real reason being his unwillingness to change Macedonia’s name quick enough.
Since Macedonia became independent in 1991 from the crumbling Yugoslavia, Greece has blocked it from first gaining international recognition and admission into the European Union and the US led military alliance of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) unless it dropped the name of Macedonia.
In 2018 using coercion and blackmail, the Zaev government of Macedonia , which replaced Gruevski two years prior, changed the country’s name by securing a two-thirds majority in the Macedonia Parliament to ram home the Prespa Agreement, signed by both Greece and Macedonia in which Macedonia would change its name to “North Macedonia.”
Prime Minster elect Mickovski vowed during the election campaign of 2024 that he would not change Macedonia’s Constitution to accommodate Bulgaria’s demand, tantamount to extortion, by including Bulgars as a “constituent nation forming people.”
If Macedonia refuses to do so, Bulgaria, taking its cue from Greece’s past actions, will block Macedonia from joining the EU.
Before the election, the US and EU mandarins demanded that Mickovski obey Bulgaria’s diktat. So it looks likely that at some point he will probably buckle and cave in. When that will happen is anyone’s guess.