Freedom in the World 1999 - Macedonia

1999 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 3.0
Civil Liberties: 3
Political Rights: 3

Trend Arrow ↓

Macedonia receives a downward trend arrow due to widespread voting irregularities and increased tensions between Macedonian and Albanian political parties.

Overview

In 1999, Macedonia experienced its most dramatic year since voting for independence in September 1991. The Kosovo conflict sent hundreds of thousands of Albanian refugees into the country, putting tremendous strains on Macedonia's resources and infrastructure and bringing the fragile Macedonian-Albanian coalition government to the breaking point. This was also the year that the "father of his country," Kiro Gligorov, who had kept Macedonia out of the "wars of the Yugoslav succession," stepped down, leaving Macedonia to be guided by a new generation of political leaders.

With the exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, a land-locked country of two million people, is the most fragile of the states to emerge from the breakup of Yugoslavia. Macedonia's most important internal problem is the relationship between the Macedonian Slavic majority and the ethnic Albanian minority, which makes up 23 percent of the country's population and is geographically concentrated in northern and western Macedonia adjacent to Kosovo and Albania proper. If current demographic trend continue, Albanians will constitute a majority of Macedonia's population by 2025.

Macedonia also confronts difficult external problems as well. Yugoslavia has outstanding border issues with it, and Bulgaria denies the existence of a separate Macedonian language (claiming that Macedonian is merely a dialect of Bulgarian). Greece for several years refused to recognize the state because of a dispute over its right to use the name of Macedonia, leading to a four-year long trade embargo on the country. Consequently, in international fora the country is officially titled the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

Despite these difficulties, under Gligorov's tenure Macedonia avoided the violence that engulfed the other states of the former Yugoslavia and began to normalize its relations with its neighbors. Greek-Macedonian relations have noticeably improved since the mid-1990s, and Greek enterprises have shown a strong interest in developing economic ties with the country, despite political problems.

On Macedonia's domestic scene, in the fall of 1998, a coalition of parties composed of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Democratic Party for Macedonian Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) and led by Ljupco Georgievski, together with a bloc of Albanian parties, the Democratic Alternative (DA) and the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), won the fall 1998 elections to the Macedonian parliament, the Sobranje. After the new government was formed, an amnesty law was passed by the new parliament, and several ethnic Albanian politicians were released from prison in early 1999. In the western Macedonian town of Tetovo, which has a large Albanian population, the position of chief of police was filled by an ethnic Albanian, and the formal opening of an Albanian-language Tetovo University was being discussed.

Despite such progress, the Kosovo war was a significant setback for Macedonia. The influx of some 260,000 Kosovo Albanians placed severe strains on the country's infrastructure and resources, and exacerbated tensions between the Slavic and Albanian members of Macedonia's coalition government. Worries about a possible spillover of the conflict increased on April 17, 1999, when Macedonian authorities discovered a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) weapons cache on Macedonian territory. The KLA also ran recruitment videos on local Albanian television stations, which increased fears that the KLA would eventually turn its attention to Macedonia as well. DPA leader Arben Xhabferi claimed in May 1999 that the ruling coalition was on the brink of collapse and that the only thing keeping Albanians in the government was strong international pressure and the belief that if Albanians left the government, conditions for refugees would be even worse. Many analysts feared that only the deployment of more than 6,000 NATO troops to Macedonia prevented even more severe eruptions of interethnic tension.

The Kosovo conflict also severely affected Macedonia's economy. Prior to the war, Macedonia was expected to enjoy modest economic growth. In the aftermath of the Kosovo war, Macedonia's gross domestic product was expected to shrink by ten percent as a result of the war and the loss of trade with Yugoslavia, Macedonia's main trading partner and export market, and a vital source of Macedonia's raw materials. State coffers were emptied as a result of the expense of the Kosovo conflict, with no money left to pay unemployment benefits, pensions, health care provisions, or public service salaries. According to some reports, unemployment may have reached 40 to 50 percent after the Kosovo conflict. All these things increased social unrest and interethnic tensions. Although an International Donor's Conference pledged $252 million worth of aid to Macedonia on May 6, 1999, several months later, Macedonian officials were complaining that the aid still had not arrived.

After the end of the Kosovo conflict, political energies in Macedonia turned to the post-Gligorov succession. The Macedonian presidency is a largely ceremonial post, but Gligorov's personal authority endowed it with significant symbolic authority. The Macedonian elections were held in two rounds and included six candidates. After the first round (on October 31) two main contenders emerged: Boris Trajkovski of the VMRO-DPMNE ruling coalition, and Tito Petkovski of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM). This made the support of the ethnic Albanian population the key to winning the presidential race. The second round runoff took place on November 14, with initial forecasts claiming that the government's candidate, Trajkovski, had won a close vote in which there was a 70 percent voter turnout countrywide. But the opposition SDSM immediately charged that voting irregularities had taken place in Albanian-populated areas. An Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission concurred, and on November 27, Macedonia's supreme court accepted the opposition complaints. Consequently, the state electoral commission ordered that the vote be repeated on December 5 in 230 polling stations. Voting irregularities in Albanian villages were again the norm (one prominent elections observer claimed that the voting fraud and intimidation in Albanian villages was the worst he had witnessed in monitoring over 50 elections in postcommunist countries), but nevertheless, Trajkovski was officially declared the winner and inaugurated on December 15.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

The judiciary in Macedonia is considered independent for the most part, although the court system is sometimes slow and inefficient. The most sensitive civil liberties issues in Macedonia usually involve complaints by ethnic Albanians. Albanian leaders in Macedonia are pushing for the right to a university education in Albanian, more participation in political institutions, and changes in the constitution to declare Albanians an official constituent group of the country. Some call for a federalization of Macedonia. Albanian leaders also claim discrimination in education and access to public sector jobs.

The media in Macedonia are generally free. The constitution prohibits censorship, and freedom of speech and access to information are guaranteed. State TV is the most influential and is able to reach all parts of the country, on various channels. Private networks are, however, growing rapidly and are seen as more reliable sources of information than State TV. A March 1998 decision by Macedonia's state Broadcasting Council, a body whose members are chosen by the Sobranje, approved almost all applications for radio and television licenses, but many in the media complain about unfair competition because illegal broadcasters have not been taken off the air. Print media are numerous and available in both Macedonian and Albanian, although the state controls the newspaper distribution system.

Macedonia is home to three main religious faiths: Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Orthodox Christianity. Macedonian citizens generally enjoy full freedom of religion, although in the past various Protestant sects have complained that the government obstructed their ability to register their churches or carry out proselytizing activities. Because of a jurisdictional dispute between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the as yet unrecognized Macedonian Orthodox Church, Serbs in Macedonia have claimed that their right to freedom of worship has been limited.

There are no significant restrictions on freedom of assembly, and numerous groups such as independent trade unions exist. However, disturbances and violence have occasionally occurred between police and ethnic Albanians. During the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, large-scale riots protesting the NATO attacks erupted in Skopje and smaller towns in Macedonia.