EU Ambassador Erwan Fouéré, French Ambassador Bernard Valero, Slovenian Ambassador Alain Brian Bergant and Dutch Ambassador Simone Filippini discussed the early elections in the Republic of Macedonia in a talk show on the second channel of the Macedonian Television (MTV2). This Channel mainly has ethnic Albanian viewers and is subtitled in Macedonian language.

Asked about the importance of these elections for Macedonia, Ambassador Filippini pointed out that all elections are important for a country, but due to the fact that Macedonia is an EU candidate country, the odds are high and there is certainly more pressure to show very good election results. 

“On one side I am an optimist, since I have been talking to many people of different professions, ethnicities, men and women and I came to the conclusion that all of them want fair and democratic elections. They also want to be able each and every one of them to decide freely and independently who they will vote for. Sometimes my colleagues and I feel frustrated because there are elements that stand of the way of the will of the Macedonian citizens to express their opinion on these elections in a peaceful and free manner. I constantly appeal to the political parties that they have no right whatsoever to obstruct the voting process. The use of violence or intimidation during election time is unthinkable in any mature democracy. There is no ‘natural’ right of any political party to get even one vote. Parties have to deserve the vote of the citizens” – Filippini emphasized.  

Ambassador Filippini laid the responsibility for the whole process of free, fair and peaceful elections with the outgoing Government, in particular Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and Minister of Interior Gordana Jankulovska, as she is responsible for the behaviour and deployment of the police forces. The police are one of the crucial factors in guaranteeing the right of people to freely cast their ballots. Moverover, the presence of any irregular, unidentified forces is not in line with any international standards and installs fear in citizens and will influence their voting patterns.

According to her, the country is on the right track working on further rapprochement towards European Union membership. Macedonian people are European people and the question is not whether but when the country will become an EU member state. The best thing that could happen now is that on 2nd June, when waking up, Macedonians would be able to say that they are proud of the fact that in the end the elections have been free and fair and that they were able to freely cast their ballot.  

For more information on the early parliamentary elections 2008, go here.