WikiLeaks: Macedonia PM's Youth Worried Ahmeti

According to the head of the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, “Prime Minister Gruevski is too young and his youth is reflected in his decision making,” states the document released after his informal conversation on August 16, 2009 with the US ambassador, Philip Reeker.

Ahmeti expressed concern that the Prime Minister was under the influence of his cousin, intelligence chief Sasho Mialkov, who, according to him, expressed deep disdain towards the ethnic Albanian community in government meetings.

“He is worried that Mijalkov has the contacts and the desire to provoke rogue ethnic Albanian elements in Macedonia into creating problems, which Mijalkov could use to justify broad action against the ethnic Albanian community at large,” the US embassy cable says.

Asked by ambassador Reeker to rate the state of current affairs in his country from one to ten, where ten would be ideal situation and one would be state it was in in 2001, when the country was on the brink of a civil war, Ahmeti opted for four or five.

“He said ethnic Macedonians still believed the country was theirs alone, and pointed to the lack of official use of the Albanian language throughout the country and the lack of equitable representation of ethnic Albanians in leadership positions in government as the two biggest issues for the ethnic Albanian community,” the US cable said.  

He noted that during the DUI's previous government coalition [with the now opposition Social Democrats], the DUI controlled stronger ministries than it held now.

Ahmeti’s party entered a Social Democrat-led government after the 2002 election. The coalition lasted until 2006, when the Social Democrats lost to the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE.

“Ahmeti said overcoming the name issue [with Greece] and joining NATO would make it easier to focus on the other inter-ethnic issues and alleviate a lot of the mounting frustrations in the minds of ethnic Albanians.”

According to the document, Ahmeti asked Reeker to step up public pressure on Gruevski to solve the "name" dispute with Greece but "the Ambassador noted that we need to calibrate public comments to avoid exacerbating Gruevski's insecurities and that behind the scenes actions can often be more effective."

The long-standing dispute of Macedonia's name, which Greece contests, has prevented Macedonia’s accession to NATO in 2008 and is hampering Macedonia’s efforts to join the EU. Greece wants Macedonia to change its name, which is an unpopular demand in Macedonia.

Though mostly critical of Gruevski's inner-circle, Ahmeti had positive view on the then freshly elected head of state, Gjorge Ivanov.  Ivanov seemed a “good guy” but the DUI boss felt he was “more of a professor than a president” and lacked real power as a "de facto" subordinate to the Prime Minister.

Ivanov had been elected President of Macedonia several months earlier that year as a VMRO-DPMNE candidate.

According to the document, Ahmeti was also critical of his ethnic Albanian rival, Menduh Thaci, head of the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians.

He dismissed Thaci's call for a revision of the Ohrid Peace Accord that ended the 2001 armed conflict, by granting Albanians greater rights, saying it reflected his political marginalization.

“He believes that Thaci's behavior has become more erratic and could threaten the stability of Macedonia,” the document says.

That year, Thaci had said that he would ask neighbouring Albania to veto Macedonia's bid to join NATO because of a perceived fall-off in Albanian rights in the country.

Ahmeti told Reeker he had a very different perspective from the Prime Minister on matters of religion.  He did not agree with Gruevski’s political-religious agenda and with his insistence on erecting ever more churches and religious symbols.

“There are more churches and mosques in Macedonia than believers,” Ahmeti told Reeker adding that the Islamic Community's President, Sulejman Rexhepi, was everything but a believer.  Ahmeti called the Islamic Community "God's bureaucracy" and said he did not support it.