The leader of GROM was a Minister of Economy, Minister of Labor and Social Policy in two governments. He was also the second in command at the SDS during the Crvenkovski era, however quit the party for, what he called “too many traitors” within the SDS.
In his first elections, GROM took one seat in Parliament, however during last year elections he took in two seats. GROM is in coalition with DPMNE.
In an interview with popular Russian newsportal Sputnik, Stevco Jakimovski, the current mayor of Karposh discussed the anti Russian hysteria in the Balkans and NATO.
“An anti-Russian hysteria, a russophobia produced by US-controlled and funded media has been set up not just across the Balkans, but across Europe. It’s “fancy” when one speaks against the Russians, when it is said that the Russian influence should be cut off in the Balkans, especially in Macedonia. My question is, “what Russian influence?” We have 17 gas stations, one mine, our European champion Vardar whose owner is both Russian and Macedonian, and the Russian Embassy. That’s all the “Russian” we have in Macedonia. Nobody sees our alleged friendship with the Americans objectively and critically. The Americans are coming and saying that if they do not like something, we are disrupting US national interests. Call me crazy, but we should think first of our own interests, not the US interests. We do not have enough smaller political parties, but it is interesting that citizens in Macedonia in the majority justify this and do not justify the subordination of our government, to be servants of American politics. I am sorry that in Macedonia there is an anti-Serb scenario written in Washington. We must have good relations with Albanians in Kosovo, Albania, with Bulgarians and Serbs. We can not make unprincipled coalitions to the detriment of good neighborly relations.”
Where does this anti-Serb mood come from?
– What happened to the Serb embassy is not at all a naive thing. It was clear that someone bigger than Serbia and Macedonia was involved – we are not naive – it was a serious intrusion in the Serbian security system in which the Macedonian intelligence services also had influence. It’s unacceptable. I do not believe that Macedonia did this on its own, it was probably someone’s order. What’s important to me is that my party does not like it in particular, and that is to be the perpetrator of dirty, very dirty things, regardless of where the order comes from.
Should Macedonia Join NATO?
– The current Government is singing NATO, NATO.. and what do we do when the Empire send us the first crates, God forbid, of our dead soldiers? Because when we enter NATO (ask the Romanians and Bulgarians), that means that we’ll be in the first battle lines and only God knows where. You know, America always dishes out justice somewhere and it’s great when others are doing the dying. The typical Macedonian is clueless just how expensive is to be a member of NATO. They do not even know that every year we need to allocate two percent of our budget, which is about 160 million euros. Apart from this massive fee, we are obliged each year to make American weapons companies richer and purchase new arms every year, year after year. In four years we have to allocate one billion euros. I am deeply convinced that for all of us here in the Balkans, it would be best for Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and probably Bosnia, to be militarily neutral, and that would be good for lasting peace, because membership in NATO does not mean that we will have no problems. Turkey is a NATO member, so see what happened there.
Is there a fool somewhere who can say that NATO didn’t know murder was prepared for Turkish president Erdogan? There was a coup. The official Turkish position is that NATO structures and America had a major hand in the coup to the tune of $5 billion as well as the planning of all the details. Being in NATO doesn’t protect you from… an attack by NATO, as Turkey found out. This is an astonishing and absolutely a defeating fact. Look at the Turks now, they look as if they are in partnership with Russia, not NATO. Can you blame them?
Being in NATO is like being in a relationship with an extortioner – you pay your fee, but then they have new demands, you pay the other part, and you have to constantly pay new interest rates and new fees. It is best to be neutral for the whole region.
