SDSM officials are ramping up their public events in an apparent attempt to create a sense of normalcy, as the party is pushing for elections to be held as soon as possible. After months in which their public schedule was non-existent, Government officials are now out, holding unnecessary public events and being casual with their face masks.
The leftist party insists that elections should be held as soon as possible, raising worries that SDSM will try to hold a “corona election” – a low turnout affair without a chance for proper campaigning, that will reduce turnout and give SDSM a chance to reduce its losing margin to VMRO-DPMNE. A major reason for SDSM to push for elections before it is safe is the expected economic downturn caused by the epidemic. Holding elections after the full extent of the crisis is felt in the public will likely reduce SDSM’s chances even further.
For this purpose, even Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce and other officials tasked with managing the coronavirus response were trotted out to speculate about a “second wave” of the epidemic coming in autumn. Other SDSM officials were out expressing their newfound concern for the need to have a functioning Parliament that would hold the Government accountable. The same Parliament whose members SDSM bribed and blackmailed in the past to get them to vote for the imposed name change and to approve the scandalous law on public prosecutors is now supposed to be a check on their executive power.
I don’t want the country to enter the second possible wave of the epidemic and the second half of the year without a Parliament and without fully functional institutions. That is why we consider elections to be necessary, Deputy Prime Minister Radmila Sekerinska fired off the two SDSM talking points during her remarks on Monday.
President Pendarovski also joined in support of his party. He postponed the expected meeting of party leaders where a mutually acceptable way out of the political crisis is supposed to be sought and has now declared that he won’t be able to postpone the state of emergency for much longer. Pendarovski earlier extended the state of emergency for a second month even though he acknowledged that the Constitution doesn’t give him that right.
But, in Macedonia, the Constitutional Court is as useful as an empty roll of toilet paper.
