On Sunday, the new government was elected in Parliament with 77 votes in favour, 22 against, and no abstentions. In his closing address before the vote, Hristijan Mickoski, who’s the new PM, said work, commitment, responsibility, and concrete projects were needed.
16 members of the new cabinet, including the PM, are part of the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition, Your Macedonia, six are members of VLEN, and two are part of ZNAM. During the swearing-in ceremony, Mickoski used the constitutional name of the country.
“I will say the shameful adjective during the ceremony because it reminds me of the shame you’ve caused to my fatherland, to my family, to my unborn grandchildren. I will do everything that I can as long as I am alive to fix this injustice. Unfortunately, at this moment, I am powerless. At this moment, I will have to capitulate as a human before you and say it,” Mickoski stated.
Regarding the issue of constitutional changes, Mickoski said the current version of the “Bulgarian dictate” would not pass as long as he was the PM. The DUI-led European Front left the session before the vote, saying the new government didn’t have legitimacy from the ethnic communities.
Previously, expectedly, the debate in Parliament after the presentation of the new cabinet’s programme by Mickoski the previous day had been marked by fierce criticism and accusations between MPs. At the presentation of the cabinet’s programme, on Saturday, he said there would be an all-out start of projects and new investments right away.
“From what we’ve been finding about the state of affairs in the country, the situation equals clinical death in multiple key areas, devastated to the point of unrecognisability, where institutions have been brought to the brink of literal doom and unprecedented dysfunctionality,” he stressed.
Mickoski announced that the programme focused on economic strengthening and a better living standard.
“We must achieve GDP growth of up to 5% annually. A low inflation rate, not higher than 2-2.5% annually. Reducing unemployment to 7.5%, that is, creating 55,000 new jobs. We will reduce taxes. We will make sure that every child can enrol at kindergarten. Investments in infrastructure of over 2 billion euros over a four-year period, finishing the Ohrid-Kicevo motorway, reconstructing and rehabilitating the railway Corridor X and procurement of trains, as well as 250 million euros in capital investments in municipalities. We will work on decentralisation,” he stressed.
The PM-designate also announced that there would be an investment worth 400 million euros as early as the start of the cabinet’s term, next week, as well as a quick pace of work.
He called on the future cabinet members from all echelons to do honest work because they report to citizens, not to party HQs. VMRO-DPMNE MP and former Foreign Minister Antonijo Milososki said regarding foreign policy that the strategic partnership with the US should continue, adding that that was the manner through which the country could achieve its interests at a global level.
In his view, the new cabinet will face difficult battles regarding international politics, considering the approach of Bulgaria and Greece.
ZNAM MP Boban Karapejovski said the new generation that would give up on its well-being for the sake of the country’s prosperity was being elected. MP and outgoing SDSM leader Dimitar Kovacevski criticised the programme, saying there were inconsistent parts and positions. In his view, there are announcements regarding the economy in generalities, that is, there are no concrete figures about plans to increase the average and minimum salary.
When it comes to infrastructure, he said all proposed elements represented resumption of all strategic projects by the outgoing cabinet led by SDSM.
The party’s Parliamentary Group Coordinator, Oliver Spasovski, said there was no deadline in terms of when most projects would be completed. Also, he ironically asked Mickoski why he would use the constitutional name, considering “he has for years assured citizens and voters that that will not happen” and whether he would terminate the Prespa Agreement and Treaty with Bulgaria.
Spasovski also ironically remarked that “even the [Bechtel ENKA] Corridors project” had been gladly accepted and put in the programme even though “you would say about it was a criminal one.” In response, VMRO-DPMNE MPs fiercely criticised Spasovski’s term as Interior Minister.
However, neither they nor Mickoski answered his questions. Levica MP and leader Dimitar Apasiev, too, slammed the composition of the government and its plans. He said that he had wasted four hours reading the programme.
“‘The Republic of North Macedonia’ is used at five places in three lines,” he said, asking why they’d lied to the people about the constitutional name use issue.
DUI MP Sadulla Duraki reiterated his party’s criticism of the decision for Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia leader Ivan Stoiljkovic to be candidate for Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Inter-Community Relations. Parties from the ethnic Albanian bloc, he stated, shouldn’t allow a “man of Russia and Serbia to defend the interests of Albanians in the Republic of North Macedonia.”
The representatives of VLEN, which is part of the new cabinet, however, responded by asking what DUI had done during its term as the ruling party. The coalition’s Parliamentary Group Coordinator, Halil Snopce, said Ali Ahmeti’s party should answer several questions, including why the “political prisoners” hadn’t been released from prison.
As he added, during DUI’s term as a ruling party, North Macedonia has had the worst democratic parameters and has been among the most corrupt countries. Parties traded accusations on Sunday, too, with SDSM MP Sanja Lukarevska saying VMRO-DPMNE had broken many of its promises.
“Hope has started to disappear,” she stated, slamming the way in which the changes to the Law on Organisation and Operation of the State Administration Bodies had been adopted. She also ironically compared the presentation of the programme by Mickoski to that of Nikola Gruevski in 2006, describing them as “nearly identical”.
In response, VMRO-DPMNE parliamentarians stated that the country hadn’t received a date for starting EU negotiations precisely because of the SDSM-led government.
“This is a big day because the most incompetent and most criminal government is leaving,” VMRO-DPMNE’s Ljupco Prendzov stated, adding that the new cabinet would consist of people who’d received unprecedented credibility and legitimacy from voters.
In response, SDSM’s Borce Cvetkov said VMRO-DPMNE’s “promise” that there would be no constitutional changes under a Bulgarian dictate “has turned into a new promise for reciprocal recognition of minorities.”