[ALBSA-Info] New Law on Local Government in Macedonia

[Agron Alibali]

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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL Balkan Report
Vol. 6, No. 7, 1 February 2002

MACEDONIA HAS A NEW LAW ON LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT, BUT...
After months of intensive discussions, the Macedonian parliament
approved a new law on local self-government on 24 January (see
"RFE/RL Newsline," 22, 24, and 25 January 2002). The breakthrough
came after the leaders of the four main political parties agreed --
at the urging of President Boris Trajkovski -- to pass the law in
parliament.
The major points at issue included the possibility that
neighboring municipalities could form a common administration under
the provisions of the draft law. Ethnic Macedonians feared that this
could ultimately lead to a federalization and partition of the
country. The provision in question has now been replaced by one
saying that municipalities are allowed to form joint administrations
only in certain branches, such as education or health.
Other controversial points included the status and financing of
local health care. Here, a compromise was found leaving basic health
care to the municipalities, while control over health-insurance
remains with the central state administration.
Most Western diplomats like the European Union's Javier Solana
or German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer hailed the adoption of the
law as a major step toward a lasting peace in Macedonia. Some other
Western observers suggested that the most important thing about the
adoption of the new law is that it shows that the peace process is
still alive and well.
Domestic politicians were less enthusiastic. While the reform
went too far for many ethnic Macedonian politicians, some Albanian
politicians wanted to grant even more rights to the local
authorities. "There is no ideal law, but the one agreed upon
represents a new willingness to decentralize the country," the
spokesman for the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity
(PPD), Zahir Bekteshi, told AP.
The so-called Block of Macedonian Parties from Tetovo asked the
Constitutional Court to examine the autonomy law. Macedonian
politicians from that chiefly Albanian town fear that the minority
rights of Macedonians there are not protected by the new law.
Elsewhere, the Association of the Units of Local Self-
Government -- the umbrella organization of the municipalities --
welcomed the legislation. But at the same time it added: "The law on
local self-government is only the first in a whole set of laws that
will follow,... especially the law on financing the municipalities."
Together with the above-mentioned law, there are about 30 laws
slated to be adopted by the parliament in the near future. Many of
them have to be modified as a consequence of the Ohrid peace
agreement, and it is unlikely that legislators will pass all of them
before the parliamentary elections, expected later this year.
The most important of these laws is the amnesty law. Many
Albanians believe that the current amnesty decree issued by
Trajkovski is not enough. During Solana's last visit, Prime Minister
Ljubco Georgievski promised that there will be an amnesty law. The
question is when and how it will come into effect. (Ulrich
Buechsenschuetz, ub at i...)

ETHNIC ALBANIAN PARTIES IN MACEDONIA FORM COOPERATION
COUNCIL. Iso Rusi, the editor in chief of the Albanian-language
weekly "Lobi," published an article at the beginning of January
calling for cooperation between the various ethnic Albanian political
parties in Macedonia. Shortly after the article appeared, Rusi's
vision materialized with the launch of the Coordination Council of
the Albanians.
For many observers, this came as a surprise. Before the
outbreak of violence in February 2001, the main ethnic Albanian
political parties in Macedonia -- the Party for Democratic Prosperity
(PPD) and the Democratic Party of the Albanians (PDSH) -- hardly
spoke to each other. As was the case among their ethnic Macedonian
counterparts, the parties were divided along ideological lines.
While the PPD cooperated with the former communists of the
Social Democratic Union (SDSM), the more radical and anticommunist
PDSH formed a coalition with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization-Democratic Party of Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-
DPMNE) of nationalist Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski.
The insurgency of the ethnic Albanian rebels of the National
Liberation Army (UCK) led to a reshaping of the Albanian political
landscape. A new political party was formed: the National Democratic
Party (NDP) of Kastriot Haxhirexha. For some weeks, Macedonian media
treated the NDP as though it were the legal arm of the UCK -- similar
to Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland.
At the same time, both the PPD and the PDSH tried to take
credit for the international community's pressure on the ethnic
Macedonian politicians to end the crisis by granting more rights to
the Albanian minority.
In August 2001, U.S. and EU mediators brokered a peace accord
aimed at ending the armed insurgency. During the following weeks,
NATO soldiers collected arms from the rebels. The UCK, for its part,
declared its dissolution as of the end of September.
Very soon after the UCK disbanded, its political leader, Ali
Ahmeti, announced that he was willing to take over an important role
in politics. Opinion polls showed that he had the backing of large
parts of the Albanian minority. But the polls also showed that
Haxhirexha's party had replaced the PPD in second place after the
PDSH, which is led by the charismatic but ailing Arben Xhaferi.
Ahmeti's plan to become a politician has so far been thwarted
by the government's failure to pass an amnesty law. Such legislation
would certainly enable him and other former UCK members to enter
public life with greater confidence.
But the Albanian parties still feel Ahmeti's political
presence. And it was Ahmeti who invited the party leaders to his
stronghold, the village of Sipkovica, to form the Coordination
Council.
Whether the main aim of the council -- the coordination of all
political activities of the Albanian parties -- can be achieved
depends on whether the party leaders can put aside other political
agendas. As Rusi pointed out in his article: "If [UCK] structures
take over organizational matters, there is room for optimism -- if
for no other reason than because at first nobody believed that the
[UCK] would ever become a political and military winner." (Ulrich
Buechsenschuetz, ub at i...)



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