Macedonia Opposition to Rally Following TV Incident

“The party will help organise the event but the idea of this march is to show the will and determination of the wider population to defend the future of the country,” the Social Democrats told Balkan Insight in a written statement.

The plan for the rally in Skopje comes in response to last week’s police incident at the site of the national broadcaster A1 TV.

The opposition accuses the centre right VMRO DPMNE-led government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of trying to shut down the pro-opposition TV and threatening freedom of speech.

The smaller opposition New Social Democrats and the Liberal party have also announced their presence at the rally.

The ethnic Albanian New Democracy party, also in opposition, said it supports the gathering but will not participate, while representatives of the Liberal Democrats have said they do not wish to take part in a rally staged by the Social Democrats, a party they consider to be as undemocratic as the ruling VMRO DPMNE.

The rightist opposition party United for Macedonia, which was also outspoken in its defence of A1, has not yet said whether it will join the march.

On November 25, A1, the most popular TV station in Macedonia, complained it was under police siege. The broadcaster said its journalists were being attacked by the police and prevented from freely leaving or entering their offices.

A wider clash was narrowly avoided when a group of several hundred supporters of the TV station tried to break the police line and enter the building.

While nearly all opposition parties showed support for A1 and accused the government of totalitarian tendencies, the ruling VMRO DPMNE said the drama on Friday was staged by the Social Democrats in order to falsely portray the government as undemocratic.

The police maintain that officers came to the building to assist the financial inspection of several companies with the same address as the station which are connected to A1's owner, Velija Ramkovski. The police say that A1 was not being inspected and was in no way the target of their action.

The Social Democrats recently said they planned to ask for a vote of no-confidence in the Parliament against Gruevski’s government, which would lead to snap polls if successful. Unsatisfied by the economy and country’s stalled NATO and EU accession bids, they said they will file their motion in mid December, though it is very unlikely they will be able to push through the motion.