The party is the state
In a recent interview with the Voice of America, Bujar Osmani, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Macedonia, said something quite revealing which, when you understand what he is saying, is very much aligned with what Osmani’s leader and mentor, Ali Ahmeti, studied in school: Marxism and Leninism.
Osmani, responding to the interviewer’s question about corruption within his party, DUI, states that “This damages the state’s image at a time when we are organizing the largest-ever OSCE ministers’ conference…” Osmani went on to double-down by claiming that the opposition is running a propaganda campaign “to tarnish political opponents, without considering that it harms the state.”
In other words, the accusation of the corruption of his political party, DUI, damages the state, the country of Macedonia and is therefore, ipso facto, harmful for and to Macedonia. A simpler explanation is that the party is the state and cannot be challenged or accused. This is what Lenin’s disciple, Stalin, perfected: the Soviet Union was the Communist Party. And while not a one-party state (yet), DUI, for all intents and purposes, is the senior party to SDSM in that relationship and therefore controls almost all the levers of power.
If accusations of the corruption of his political party “damages” or “harms” the state, then should the political opposition simply never accuse DUI or SDSM of doing any wrong? Or should the opposition simply shut up, sit down, and do what they are told to do by the parties in power? Is DUI free from corruption? Is this what Osmani is saying? Can DUI do no wrong?
Osmani would prefer it if the opposition was sent to jail or exiled abroad. But since his party does not (yet) have the power to send to jail or exile abroad all the opposition, the next best thing is to claim that his party, because it is the state, cannot be challenged. Fortunately, most people do not buy his blatant lies and will continue to, rightly, challenge his party, including many within his own party as they split off to create their own political parties.
DUI is a party built on violence, corruption, crime, trafficking in women and girls, arms, drugs, murder, and more. SDSM is a party built on communism. Neither will change. DUI will, eventually, fade away or into statistical insignificance as all other ethnic Albanian parties in Macedonia have done because all of them are built on one thing: what is best for ethnic Albanians period. They are not built on such things as creating private sector jobs, rule of law, the security of the state, proper education, a working healthcare system, and all the things normally associated with a proper political party. No, the agenda of all ethnic Albanian political parties in Macedonia, now, in the past, and in the future is single issue: Albanianism. SDSM, on the other hand, at least has a definable agenda covering multiple issues and will stick around at least until the lessons of socialism and communism are learned, which will take at least another generation.
Until then, however, the crime and corruption of both parties will continue to plague Macedonia and Macedonians, sapping the lifeblood, not to mention money and capital, from the country, sending young people away, and creating space for more and more brazen criminals to perfect their crimes.
But please, don’t challenge or accuse DUI of any of this because DUI is the state.
