DPA’s Menduh Thaci, who represents the ethnic albanian community has not once been mentioned in the media over the past six months.
Out of the 120 MP seats available in Parliament, the ethnic albanians received 20 MPs – DUI (10), BESA (5), AA (3), DPA (2), but since this is Macedonia, it will be the ethnic minority parties who will effectively govern the country with only 18 MPs out of 120.
We say only 18 because DPA’s Menduh Thaci is not part of the Government negotiation or coalition.
Menduh Thaci, not an ethnic Macedonian, ended up having bigger cojones than Gruevski and Ivanov put together. While Gruevski and Ivanov issued theatrical statements day in and day out, unlike Thaci, in the end they both folded and capitulated.
Menduh Thaci follows the albanian rhetoric in the country as is the norm, has an albanian flag in his office, lets face it, Macedonians don’t vote for him so he needs the ‘decor’ to pick up votes. But when it matters on issues facing the country, he acts differently. He is also known for his lighter side, often jokes, once ended up buying a $1,500 suit to a VMRO-DPMNE MP after joking with him that he looked cheap.
Thaci is the only albanian politician in Macedonia not to back the Tirana platform, refused to attend the signing of it in Tirana. Thaci could have very easily joined the CIA train which passed through the country and gotten on-board, lots of financial promises were made to all quislings involved.
But, he didn’t, he refused to bow to demands by the US Embassy and the CIA to join the Government coalition in order to make it more stable.
Despite being under enormous pressure and threats, Thaci stood his ground, something both Gruevski and Ivanov could not do!
As Mirka Velinovska nicely pointed out in a recent interiew, Thaci’s actions did not go unnoticed by the true Macedonian patriots (and no, we don’t mean Gruevski and Ivanov).
The CIA has blacklisted Thaci since 2001 after they failed to recruit him during the conflict. His removal from the list was conditioned with him becoming their asset. Thaci is still on their black list and cannot travel to the US as a result.
It gives you a pause when a non Macedonian shows more loyalty towards Macedonia than the people we put in office and ran on a campaign to protect the country.
