Year of Numerous Calculations, Small Numbers, and Relative Sums

"Ten percent" in local elections, was followed by the break-up of the "Coalition for changes", and the new majority in the Parliament failed because of the lack of several independent representatives

by Branko GJORGJEVSKI

Dnevnik, Skopje, Macedonia, December 30, 2000

The [Macedonian] people, in whose tradition mathematics does not take an important spot, this year "practiced" a lot of math with small numbers and uncertain sums based on the homework given by various political parties. The local elections, the break-up of the coalition between VMRO-DPMNE and the DA, and the attempt to set up a new majority in the parliament, which ended up like an equation with several unknowns, in the end produced a relative result. That surprised even those who know that in politics two and two are not always four, but can be five or six depending on the method chosen for addition. In the Macedonian politics, as never before, the limits of mathematical exactness were pushed to the limit, so that everything became possible and impossible, correct and incorrect. Last year's events were not uniquely Macedonian, but they nevertheless confirmed that political calculations in our state should in the future be made using the same methods and operations as until now. Otherwise, even in the future we shall never know who actually won the local elections, whether the candidate for whom you voted is really a candidate and will remain a candidate of the political group that has nominated him, whether your ballot is legitimate or lost in the pile of discarded ballots, whether the state can organize elections in which you will not be hit by a bullet at a polling station... And whether a coalition that claimed that it would last for hundred years in order to implement changes, will break up after only two years, in an unsuccessful attempt to set up a new majority in the Parliament. And all of that will fail because given signatures, vows, and guarantees of several of "their" representatives were not valid, while transfers, offers and demands, whose fulfillment in the ninth circle of hell easily paves the path to the first circle of power definitely were. Therefore, the relative nature of the political mathematics does not allow us to say whether thirty mayors and majorities in municipal assemblies, won by the united opposition of the SDSM, the LDP, the LD, and the SPM in the largest municipalities, constitutes an "utter defeat" of the at the time ruling coalition between the VMRO-DPMNE and the DA, which won in about 50 small municipalities. Unfortunately, those who claimed to have won in this case had claimed the same four years ago. However, then they won in almost the same municipalities as those now taken by the "opponents". Therefore, victories of the united opposition in Skopje, Bitola, Stip, Prilep, and Kumanovo [largest cities in Macedonia] should now be more important than the victories of the ruling coalition in tens of municipalities such as Bac, Sterevina, Cesinovo, Oblesevo, Orasac, Podares, Konce... And the other way round. It is similarly difficult to count "ten percent" in the difference between the votes cast for the government and the opposition, on which, based on the promise given by the Prime Minister, depended the holding of an early general election. In other words, whether that percentage should be determined with respect to the total number of voters, or the total number of votes cast for the government and the opposition. The opposition used one set of calculations and claimed that its 243,332 votes for representatives and 503,459 votes for mayors are by 78 and 99.57 percent, respectively, more than 252,262 and 243,332 votes cast for the governing coalition on the same lists. The coalition of the VMRO-DPMNE and the DA used different calculations and erased votes cast for the mayor of Skopje from the opposition total, since it concluded that the votes cast by the residents of Skopje should be counted only once, when they voted for the Skopje city assembly. And when to their total they added the votes cast for their third coalition partner, the DPA [ethnic Albanian party], and all of that was compared to the total number of voters, one got that both the government and the opposition won roughly 36% of votes. As all of that was further confused by unclear statements in which the Prime Minister once counted the votes received by the VMRO-DPMNE and the DA, and then also the DPA, all additions and subtractions were illusory and relative. Therefore, there is no abacus or computer that would be able to calculate a victory or defeat, even though party spokespersons kept offering to buy one to their counterparts. After such mathematical confusion only one definite thing remained at the polling stations - Fatmir Jakupi murdered in the village of Kondovo, near Skopje, seriously wounded Aleksandar Minov from Kocani, tens of injured persons, hundreds of fired bullets, an army of racketeers... The international observers assessed that the local elections "did not satisfy the democratic standards", and the citizens of Macedonia learnt that, even in the midst of a crisis, in Serbia or Albania the elections can pass without incidents, unlike in our country.

The way it was, the final score of the local elections prompted a new political calculation within the coalition "For Changes". Two years of common "life" of the VMRO-DPMNE and the DA were enough see a repeat of one more fable about their unsuccessful coalition. The alliance between Ljubco Georgievski and Vasil Tupurkovski was supposed to secure to both of them everything they lacked to achieve a victory in the parliamentary elections and their future survival. The former needed the decisive fifteen percents of the voter support and the civic image of the DA so that he could forge a coalition with the DPA. The latter needed a strong political organization that could support his ambitions to become the chief of the state. Only time will show what calculations Tupurkovski used when he made the decision to leave the ruling coalition. Whether the assertions about "the lack of democracy", "stalled reforms", and "endangered electoral process" were so dire that he had to half way through the tenure initiate the project of a new majority in the Parliament? Or, did Tupurkovski simply assess that he had nothing to gain from a political alliance with Georgievski in the 2002 election? Perhaps the motivation for that act was the desire for political revenge by the leader of the DA? The leader of the VMRO-DPMNE broke the agreement according to which Vasil Tupurkovski, rather than Boris Trajkovski was supposed to be the coalition candidate for the president of Macedonia. The sum of representatives in the end demonstrated that the opposition failed to reach the needed 61 supporters. The mathematical victory of the now ruling coalition consisting of the VMRO-DPMNE, the DPA, the LP, and "independent" representatives, however, did not bring the desired political outcome. The government is unable to guarantee that it has firm support of 65 representatives in the current majority, while the opposition cannot count on its unity and longevity of the new opposition alliance. The business has simply boiled down to the level at which "changes of mind" of several representatives could determine the fate of the ruling coalition, enactment of laws, holding of parliament sessions.... Whenever people can change their mind, there are also factors that decide to what extent the political decisions are determined by pragmatism and bribes instead of real affiliation with a certain political option. Therefore, such "transfers", "mathematically" backed up with many ones and many more zeros have affected our political calculations so that we truly do not any more know the result of adding two and two.

Translated on January 19, 2001