The issue of national identity is taken seriously by Balkan people – including the least serious among them.
Key Political Players
» Nikola Gruevski
» Zoran Zaev
» Ali Ahmeti
» Menduh Thaci
Born August, 31, 1970, in Skopje, Macedonia’s Prime Minister and leader of the ruling centre-right VMRO-DPMNE is seen as an economically savvy technocrat.
After VMRO-DPMNE, under the leadership of Ljubco Georgievski, lost the 2002 elections, Gruevski, then Georgievski’s economy minister, was elected party chief in 2003.
After winning the 2006 elections with the slogan “Revival in 100 steps”, Gruevski formed a government with the Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, and three smaller parties. Promising to foster economic progress and job creation, Gruevski pledged also to tackle corruption and work for swift entry into NATO and the EU.
Under his leadership in the past two years, Macedonia’s economic progress was notable and GDP grew by more than 5 per cent in 2007 for the first time since independence.
His government had many new faces, as youngsters in their thirties took control of key ministries and senior posts. However, his decision not to include in government the strongest Albanian party, the Democratic Union of Integration, DUI, caused protests and resulted in that party boycotting parliament. Much of 2007 was spent trying to persuade the DUI to return to parliament, which only happened late in the year.
In June 2008, Gruevski supported the DUI’s call for early general elections and his party won even more seats in parliament, then forming a second government. This time he included DUI.
Various opinion polls have suggested that Gruevski is by far the most popular politician right now. But the opposition charges him with waging a populist, hard line policy towards Greece on the “name” dispute. He is a former World Bank economist and amateur stage actor and boxer.
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Born in 1974 in Strumica, Zaev, a successful mayor of the same south-eastern town, became SDSM president after his party’s heavy setback in the June 2008 elections. He succeeded Radmila Sekerinska who resigned after this electoral debacle.
His presidency is seen only as temporary and is expected to end after the March elections. He was elected to hold the party together until the announced return of the former head, the charismatic Branko Crvenkovski, whose term of office as a head of state ends in March.
He was elected a SDSM legislator in 2003 only to end his term in 2005, when he became mayor of Strumica. Since 2006 he has been a vice-president of the Social Democrats.
Zaev, an economist by vocation, became known to the wider public last summer when he was arrested and later released under suspicion of abuse of his office as mayor. President Crvenkovski amnestied him.
The episode earned him much popularity among the opposition who saw him as a victim of a politically motivated vendetta by the authorities under VMRO DPMNE. Zaev is still Strumica mayor and will run for the same seat in the March poll.
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Born January 4, 1959, in
Zajas, former chief of the Albanian guerilla force that staged a six-month insurgency
in 2001, leads the main ruling ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for
Integration, DUI.
During the 1980s he was active in Albanian nationalist movements in Kosovo, which earned him a year in jail. Until 2001, he lived in Switzerland, where he obtained political asylum. In 1996, Ahmeti was a founder of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA and in 1998 was elected a member of the main staff of the KLA.
Back in Macedonia, Ahmeti became commander of the self-styled National Liberation Army, NLA in Macedonia in 2001. That year, the US named the NLA a terrorist organisation and thus in June 2001 Ahmeti was put on the black list of people unwelcome in the US, Switzerland and other countries.
After the signing of the 2001 Ohrid framework accord, which ended the insurgency, the former fighters formed the DUI in June 2002, electing Ahmeti as president. In September 2002, the DUI won the elections among the Albanian parties and the DUI joined the coalition government with the Social Democrats. Ahmeti was also removed from the US black list.
After the July 2006 elections, the DUI left the government and in January 2007 began a boycott of parliament. This only ended in late 2007 after leaders of the main parties in the country reached a deal on further reforms, which the DUI sought. Ahmeti’s party became part of Gruevski’s government after the June 2008 elections.
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Now 42, the former right-hand man of Arben Xhaferi, Thaci succeeded him as head of the Democratic Party of Albanians in 2007.
While seen as charismatic, some doubt whether he has stepped out from the shadow of his old mentor. In the past, Thaci was seen as a radical. Recent police data show they tapped his conversations on several occasions over the last 15 years.
Thaci’s party entered Gruevski’s first government after the 2006 elections, despite winning fewer votes than the rival Democratic Union for Integration, DUI. Thaci several times threatened to leave the government, accusing Gruevski of courting the opposition DUI, and in March he sent them an ultimatum, demanding more concessions for the Albanian community.
These demands caused a political crisis, only weeks ahead of the NATO summit in Bucharest where Macedonia hoped – in vain – to get an invitation to join. After insisting he would abandon the ruling coalition, he changed his mind, however.
Thaci was not invited into Gruevski’s second government after the June 2008 elections, in which his party again lost to the DUI.
Thaci has a reputation for making outlandish statements in public. During the 2006 elections, he said the DUI leader was “sick in the head and has a brain disorder”. He earned his prank nickname, “Doctor Thaci” in the same elections, when his CV claimed he was a dentist by profession. The party refused to prove this claim by displaying his diploma.
» back to top
» Zoran Zaev
» Ali Ahmeti
» Menduh Thaci
Nikola
Gruevski
Born August, 31, 1970, in Skopje, Macedonia’s Prime Minister and leader of the ruling centre-right VMRO-DPMNE is seen as an economically savvy technocrat. After VMRO-DPMNE, under the leadership of Ljubco Georgievski, lost the 2002 elections, Gruevski, then Georgievski’s economy minister, was elected party chief in 2003.
After winning the 2006 elections with the slogan “Revival in 100 steps”, Gruevski formed a government with the Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, and three smaller parties. Promising to foster economic progress and job creation, Gruevski pledged also to tackle corruption and work for swift entry into NATO and the EU.
Under his leadership in the past two years, Macedonia’s economic progress was notable and GDP grew by more than 5 per cent in 2007 for the first time since independence.
His government had many new faces, as youngsters in their thirties took control of key ministries and senior posts. However, his decision not to include in government the strongest Albanian party, the Democratic Union of Integration, DUI, caused protests and resulted in that party boycotting parliament. Much of 2007 was spent trying to persuade the DUI to return to parliament, which only happened late in the year.
In June 2008, Gruevski supported the DUI’s call for early general elections and his party won even more seats in parliament, then forming a second government. This time he included DUI.
Various opinion polls have suggested that Gruevski is by far the most popular politician right now. But the opposition charges him with waging a populist, hard line policy towards Greece on the “name” dispute. He is a former World Bank economist and amateur stage actor and boxer.
» back to top
Zoran Zaev
Born in 1974 in Strumica, Zaev, a successful mayor of the same south-eastern town, became SDSM president after his party’s heavy setback in the June 2008 elections. He succeeded Radmila Sekerinska who resigned after this electoral debacle. His presidency is seen only as temporary and is expected to end after the March elections. He was elected to hold the party together until the announced return of the former head, the charismatic Branko Crvenkovski, whose term of office as a head of state ends in March.
He was elected a SDSM legislator in 2003 only to end his term in 2005, when he became mayor of Strumica. Since 2006 he has been a vice-president of the Social Democrats.
Zaev, an economist by vocation, became known to the wider public last summer when he was arrested and later released under suspicion of abuse of his office as mayor. President Crvenkovski amnestied him.
The episode earned him much popularity among the opposition who saw him as a victim of a politically motivated vendetta by the authorities under VMRO DPMNE. Zaev is still Strumica mayor and will run for the same seat in the March poll.
» back to top
Ali Ahmeti
Born January 4, 1959, in
Zajas, former chief of the Albanian guerilla force that staged a six-month insurgency
in 2001, leads the main ruling ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for
Integration, DUI.During the 1980s he was active in Albanian nationalist movements in Kosovo, which earned him a year in jail. Until 2001, he lived in Switzerland, where he obtained political asylum. In 1996, Ahmeti was a founder of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA and in 1998 was elected a member of the main staff of the KLA.
Back in Macedonia, Ahmeti became commander of the self-styled National Liberation Army, NLA in Macedonia in 2001. That year, the US named the NLA a terrorist organisation and thus in June 2001 Ahmeti was put on the black list of people unwelcome in the US, Switzerland and other countries.
After the signing of the 2001 Ohrid framework accord, which ended the insurgency, the former fighters formed the DUI in June 2002, electing Ahmeti as president. In September 2002, the DUI won the elections among the Albanian parties and the DUI joined the coalition government with the Social Democrats. Ahmeti was also removed from the US black list.
After the July 2006 elections, the DUI left the government and in January 2007 began a boycott of parliament. This only ended in late 2007 after leaders of the main parties in the country reached a deal on further reforms, which the DUI sought. Ahmeti’s party became part of Gruevski’s government after the June 2008 elections.
» back to top
Menduh
Thaci
Now 42, the former right-hand man of Arben Xhaferi, Thaci succeeded him as head of the Democratic Party of Albanians in 2007.While seen as charismatic, some doubt whether he has stepped out from the shadow of his old mentor. In the past, Thaci was seen as a radical. Recent police data show they tapped his conversations on several occasions over the last 15 years.
Thaci’s party entered Gruevski’s first government after the 2006 elections, despite winning fewer votes than the rival Democratic Union for Integration, DUI. Thaci several times threatened to leave the government, accusing Gruevski of courting the opposition DUI, and in March he sent them an ultimatum, demanding more concessions for the Albanian community.
These demands caused a political crisis, only weeks ahead of the NATO summit in Bucharest where Macedonia hoped – in vain – to get an invitation to join. After insisting he would abandon the ruling coalition, he changed his mind, however.
Thaci was not invited into Gruevski’s second government after the June 2008 elections, in which his party again lost to the DUI.
Thaci has a reputation for making outlandish statements in public. During the 2006 elections, he said the DUI leader was “sick in the head and has a brain disorder”. He earned his prank nickname, “Doctor Thaci” in the same elections, when his CV claimed he was a dentist by profession. The party refused to prove this claim by displaying his diploma.
» back to top
