[ALBSA-Info] [AMCC-News] Macedonia: Albanian Party Dominates by Default

[Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Center News & Information]

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http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200401_476_2_eng.txt

Macedonia: Albanian Party Dominates by Default

Moderate party has weak local support among Albanians, but survives because
it's still perceived as better than the alternative.

By Fami Bajrami in Skopje (BCR No 476, 15-Jan-04)

Moves to legalise a controversial Albanian-language university in Macedonia
are likely to boost the standing of the moderate Albanian party, the
Democratic Party for Integration, DUI, on which the government heavily
relies as a coalition partner.

The DUI needs all the help it can get, since its political base is weak at
grassroots level. The only saving grace is that its rival in Albanian
constituency areas, the more radical Democratic of Albanians, DPA, is even
less popular.

In a debate starting on January 16, the Macedonian parliament is set to pass
a law that gives legal status to an Albanian university in Tetovo, in an
area which saw several months of violent ethnic conflict in 2001. The
university was established illegally 10 years ago and became a symbol of the
Albanians' struggle for higher education in their own language. Attempts to
close it down have only bolstered support for it.

Under the proposed law, the university will not only become legal but will
receive state funding. The move will defuse a long-running source of tension
between the country's two main ethnic groups.

If passed, the law will be viewed as a triumph for the DUI, the party formed
by former Albanian rebels who gave up their guns after the conflict. No
other Albanian party can claim success in driving such a reform through.

Since it was founded two years ago, the DUI has been seen as the main
guarantor of the Ohrid peace deal that ended the conflict. The credentials
it has won for its moderate views have positioned it well to tackle thorny
issues like the university in Tetovo.

The DUI is the minor partner in a coalition led by the Socialist Democratic
Alliance of Macedonia, SDSM, which came to power in September 2002. The
Albanian party won 17 seats in parliament, and has four government ministers
and a deputy prime minister.

The coalition ousted a cabinet run by nationalists from either side of the
divide - the Macedonian VMRO and, on the Albanian side, the DPA. While those
parties were united in wanting to see the small republic split in two along
ethnic lines, the SDSM-DUI partnership pledged to maintain a multi-ethnic
society.

The DUI still dominates the Albanian political scene in the face of
ineffectual opposition from the DPA, which remains mired in allegations of
corruption and perceptions that it is intransigent on disarmament issues.

But on the ground, things sometimes look rather different - the DUI faces
opposition in some Albanian-majority areas controlled by mayors loyal to its
rival. It suffered a reverse in November when the government-sponsored
campaign it was backing to encourage Macedonians to hand in their weapons
ran into trouble, because of a boycott in 23 municipalities controlled by
the DPA.

This weakness on the ground underlines criticisms that the DUI remains
top-heavy, poorly organised and politically immature. Analysts in Macedonia
say the party has only a handful of experienced officials, no proper party
structure and no visible presence on the ground. And, they say, it is too
reliant on its leader Ali Ahmeti, a charismatic figure whom one diplomat
pointedly described as "the man who keeps Macedonia together".

"They need to get organised properly and then decentralise power to their
regions," a senior western diplomat told IWPR. "They might become a proper
party in the end as they don't have any competition. The DPA is discredited
and its radical ideas are not massively supported by the population."

This view of the DPA is shared by many diplomatic sources in Macedonia, who
told IWPR they believe the party is a spent force with a policy platform
that offers little more than a return to the past.

The DUI's advantage seems to be growing. The latest polls released in
December by the United States' International Republican Institute showed
Ahmeti's popularity rating up four percentage points from October to 11 per
cent. By contrast, the popularity of DPA leader Arben Xhaferi slumped to
four per cent.

For some observers, the DUI's weak points are outweighed by its steadfast
refusal to allow talk of ethnic partition, a positive factor which has
played well with Macedonians. "This is probably the first time in a decade
that Macedonian and Albanian parties have functioned properly in
government," a source in the government told IWPR. "The Albanian party
usually just demands control of the western part of the country and is not
interested in anything else. That's not the case now."

But others point out that the DUI's apparent strength may simply represent
the lack of any reasonable alternative.

Ahead of local elections in October 2004, many of the Albanians who voted
for the DUI two years ago are unhappy about the slow progress the governing
coalition has made in implementing reforms set out in the Ohrid accord, and
its failure to check former rebel commanders who are often accused of
involvement in organised crime. The views of one 22-year-old man from Tetovo
are fairly typical, "It turns out they [DUI] have no control over former
commanders who go around stirring up trouble." Like many others, this man
said he would nevertheless vote DUI again, because he cannot see a better
option.

DUI leaders say they are well aware of the local concerns facing their
voters, and are not taking their support for granted. "We have not forgotten
our constituency," the party's deputy leader Teuta Arifi told IWPR. "It is
true there are people who have been disappointed, but you have to bear in
mind that there are problems and issues that we cannot resolve immediately.
There are around 400,000 people unemployed. We are really focused on the key
issues."

Party members also told IWPR that the DUI is still a young organisation, and
is trying to address concerns about its outreach by building up a party
network in all the areas where Albanians live.

With the DPA in disarray, and no other major Albanian players emerging, the
DUI's most immediate challenge may be to avoid a run-in with its allies in
government. SDSM leader Branko Crvenkovski has a reputation for
marginalising previous Albanian coalition partners and riding roughshod over
their concerns.

"The only danger for Ahmeti is if his voters see him as being manipulated by
Crvenkovski," one diplomat told IWPR.

Fami Bajrami is a journalist with the Albanian language weekly Lobi.
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