Boki 13, Katica Janeva, and the hot mess that is Macedonia
And you thought summer would be boring!
The revolution always devours its own and we are seeing that appetite in Macedonia with breaking news of titanic proportions. The down and dirty summary is the following: flamboyant (fill-in-the-blank here) media personality, close friend of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, and 1TV owner Bojan Jovanovki, AKA “Boki 13” was arrested, along with an accomplice, on Monday, July 15, for an alleged extortion racket involving businessman Jordan Orce Kamcev, among others. Within hours, however, the powerful and sainted head of the Special Prosecutor Office, Katica Janeva, resigned, allegedly because of the political impasse between the government and opposition over a new law on the future operations of the office. If only her explanation was that simple, however.
Journalist Branko Geroski, who has been leading a barely covert campaign against Boki 13 and others claimed that Janeva was a part of the entire operation from the beginning (Janeva’s son, Lazar, worked for 1TV and Boki 13) in a bid to rehabilitate his name and reputation as he has been smeared by various elements of the government over the past several weeks. Basically, Geroski claims that Boki, who is very close to Janeva, told Kamcev that he could get Janeva to either back off Kamcev or go easier on him as a part of the Special Prosecutor’s investigation into Kamcev and his business, for a fee, of course. Whether or not Janeva was a part of this remains to be seen; however, media reported that police seized her phones (some media reports claim they raided her home), and that police seized her son’s computer, among seizures of Boki’s computers. Those are the basic facts and you can read more here, here, and here.
There is now a great deal of finger pointing and blame going around and between various media personalities, government officials, members of the judiciary, SDSM officials, and others over this explosive case. The journalists at 1TV have essentially disavowed Boki 13. The Special Prosecutor’s Office has not said a word about Janeva. Boki 13 has accused the judges who accused him of lying about him. And so on. Boki 13 himself should be on a suicide watch while he is in prison as he has some very deep personal problems and may see this as the end of his carefully cultivated and orchestrated, yet deeply shallow life.
What happens next? Who knows, though I’m game to take some guesses. Domestically, Zaev might throw Katica under the proverbial bus. But he should know that she, and others, have dirt on him and those around him and close to him. Everyone will be out for themselves and the so-called “colorful revolutionaries” who invested so much screaming, wild gesticulating, and paint in getting Zaev into office (who then forcibly changed Macedonia’s name, identity, heritage, culture, history and much else), will be examining their own belly buttons, questioning a great deal about their own lives and what they have brought upon themselves, their families, and Macedonia.
Internationally, we can be pretty sure of what will likely happen. First, Zaev’s international fanboi club will rapidly increase their distance from him. They have been doing this for some time, but now this will break out into the open. Zaev’s recent fall for a couple of simple pranksters that other politicians readily recognized was more of an embarrassment than anything else. But now they will openly question whether Macedonia really deserves a start date for opening EU accession talks this fall. They might decide to keep Macedonia and Albania coupled (a column I was working on until this hot mess broke) and they have better excuses day-by-day with the continued corruption and nepotism in Macedonia to deny Macedonia a date.
This whole sordid episode is a supreme embarrassment to the Western embassies and ambassadors who loudly lauded Janeva and the Special Prosecutors Office and who worked to put Zaev in his position to begin with. Of course Jess Baily, the US Ambassador is not only gone from Macedonia but also retired from the US State Department. Charles Garrett, the former British Ambassador, is now serving in Kyrgyzstan. Wouter Plomp, the outgoing Dutch Ambassador, can’t get out of the country soon enough and Mats Staffansson, the current, possibly former, Swedish Ambassador to Macedonia, who was always quick to tweet out negative news about the former government, has gone visibly silent. Of course the newly arrived US Ambassador, Kate Byrnes, is still tweeting about the beauties of “this beautiful country,” and the newer-ish UK Ambassador, Rachel Galloway, is tweeting about environmental issues and NATO. Sooner or later, however, they will be forced to address this issue.
On the other hand, will the international media, the academics like Florian Bieber, James Ker-Lindsay, and the NGOs who have supported Zaev say anything about this? Balkan Insight, a basic mouthpiece for the Zaev Government, completely ignored the scandal in its initial reporting of Janeva’s resignation. It will be difficult for them to ignore this unless they want to publicly acknowledge what everyone already knows — that they are partisan supporters for Zaev and leftist causes in general. Of course that is their right but what is not their right is to pretend to be impartial observers which is how they sell themselves. As of this writing on Tuesday, July 16, the above mentioned individuals have not said anything (Balkan Insight did write another piece subsequently highlighting the various allegations against her) but again, sooner or later, they will be forced to say something.
This is an ongoing and unfolding scandal and one which will have far-reaching and long-term negative effects for the Government of Zoran Zaev and Macedonia. Stay tuned.
