Macedonian Opposition Announces Anti-Government Protests

The Social Democrats, SDSM, will hold their first rally on October 11 in the central Macedonian town of Prilep, officials said on Friday.

The date symbolically coincides with Macedonia's national day commemorating the uprising against the fascist occupation during WWII.

“Now is the time to rise and tell this totalitarian regime that we do not want them,” the head of Prilep’s Social Democrats, Ilija Jovanovski, told a press conference.

The opposition accuses the VMRO DPMNE-led government of PM Nikola Gruevski of exercising authoritarian rule and attempting to restrict freedom of speech.

The SDSM claims the effects of the government’s economic and social policies in the past four years have been devastating for the country and accuses the PM of not putting enough effort into solving the ongoing “name” dispute with Greece, which locks Macedonia’s efforts towards becoming a NATO and EU member.

The government maintains the opposition has betrayed Macedonia's national interests over the name dispute and has blamed the economic problems on the global crisis and previous governments under the SDSM.

It has also rebuffed claims of totalitarianism, describing them as an SDSM "fabrication".

After the SDSM lost the general elections in 2006, the party’s popularity has been in constant decline and the party also convincingly lost snap polls in 2008 as well as presidential and local elections in 2009.

After spending a year undergoing internal reforms, the SDSM in June called for early elections directly after the NATO summit scheduled for November, in order not to harm Macedonia’s chances of entering the Alliance beforehand.

In a rally staged the same month, the party gathered 30,000 people, which was widely considered a relative success after years of political inactivity.

However, various opinion polls done recently show that VMRO DPMNE still enjoys unmatched popularity among voters - double that of the SDSM.