Macedonia Pushes Ahead New Laws Without Opposition

Macedonia's parliament is to vote on several controversial bills this month, including changes to the lustration law that would allow checks on the past careers of journalists, professors and NGO activists, to see whether they formerly spied for the Communist-era Yugoslav secret service.

A hotly disputed law on higher education, which some professors see as an attack on university autonomy, is also on the agenda.

Also up for a vote is a law to allow the easier legalization of the country’s many illegal builds, which the opposition says is mainly designed to cover the illegal builds of ruling party officials.

While the opposition warns that the new laws will lack legitimacy if adopted in their absence, the speaker of parliament, Trajko Veljanovski, said it was business in as usual and new legislation could not be put on hold by a boycott.

The main opposition Social Democrats said this was confirmation that the Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski and his VMRO-DPMNE party, lacked the democratic instinct and instead of trying to overcome Macedonia's political crisis, were radicalizing it.

"Gruevski keeps abusing parliament," Andrej Petrov, secretary general of the Social Democrats said. “In the absence of the opposition, Gruevski and VMRO DPMNE are adopting important laws and provisions with problematic content”.

The governing party said the opposition was to blame for the country's political disarray. “While the Social Democrats cause tension and spread chaos, VMRO DPMNE will continue to promote reforms that are for the benefit of the people," the VMRO DPMNE spokesman, Aleksandar Bicikliski, said, urging the opposition to return to parliament.

A meeting on Monday between the party leaders to overcome the political stalemate ended without success.

Macedonia entered its current political logjam two weeks ago, when nearly all opposition legislators left parliament. They walked out after the authorities blocked the bank account of A1 TV, the most popular TV in the country, which has pro-opposition leanings.