Interviews 2008

Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic interview w/ Alsat TV

May 27, 2008

Introduction:  Good evening and welcome to another special interview on Alsat M.  Macedonia is entering the final phase of the election campaign, whereas at its start political leaders and their activists made sure that the country once again receives many messages of warning from the international community that fair and democratic elections are a priority.  My guest this evening is the Ambassador of the U.S. to Macedonia, Gillian Milovanovic. 

 

ALSAT TV: Ambassador, the campaign started with many incidents.  In the last few days the situation is somewhat calmer.  Do you believe it will remain so until June 1?

Ambassador Milovanovic: First of all I am very pleased to be here and I am very pleased that you are able to broadcast again because it is very unfortunate that you had the theft of your transmitters and this is certainly something that should never happen, and especially it shouldn’t happen during a political campaign.  To answer your question, we hope very much that the lull in violence that you have mentioned will continue.  It is important that everyone realize that it does no good for the country, no good for the citizens and no good for any individual political party to be instigating violence or intimidation and of course not fraud at the time of elections.  We are hopeful that even though there are not many days left, that people will realize that the best interest of the country and their own best interest as politicians is served by having free and fair elections without any more violence and with no more intimidation. 

ALSAT TV: You have had meetings with the leaders of DUI and DPA, from where most of the incidents actually come.  What did they promise?

Ambassador Milovanovic: Well, what we have said to everyone is what I have just said.  There is no point to anyone in creating violence and creating intimidation.  For one thing, it is important that Macedonia get a good result from the point of view of ODIHR, which is going, once again, to be monitoring your elections.  In 2006 you had good results.  There were some incidents but by and large you had good results and everyone expects that this time it will be even better.  So, that’s something we impressed upon people and, as I said, also the fact that in the end if you are intimidating people, if you are creating violence, you are basically stealing the votes of people, which is not acceptable under any democratic system.  We were listened to, but obviously we have not been satisfied with some of the outcomes and we hope that people will get a grip and decide to do the right thing now.

ALSAT TV: Your statements are general, your diplomatic messages are very strong, but they are general.  Would you agree that by naming the parties, the people, the leaders directly you will have a better effect?

Ambassador Milovanovic: This has been raised a lot.  I have to tell you that as a foreign diplomat there are limits to what I feel is appropriate to do.  We are here, not to involve ourselves directly in your politics and so that places certain limits on us with respect to how much specificity we get into but I think that the public itself has a pretty good understanding of some of the things that are going on.  I believe that the public itself, especially the people who are being victimized in northwest Macedonia, people who are concerned that maybe it won’t be safe to go out and vote, people who are not having jobs at the moment because the cafes are empty, because people are going through towns and intimidating the citizens, those citizens have good idea who is responsible.  But, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think that it is appropriate for me to finger point individual parties and individuals, unless we are talking about people who literally have been already accused of a particular crime, that’s a different story.  What is clear is there is a lot going on, unfortunately in northwest Macedonia.  The biggest victims of all of this are the ethnic Albanian citizens of this country and I emphasize victims of this.  They don’t deserve, it and they deserve all of the support of the institutions of Macedonia, which includes the Ministry of Interior and a professional police- which you do have- to make sure that they are properly treated and given their rights. 

ALSAT TV: Do you think that both the leaders and the institutions understood these messages?  In 2006, together with your colleague ambassadors from the EU and other countries you had to deploy at polling stations to make sure violence would not escalate.  That, we all agree, is not in accordance with a country that is a serious candidate for membership in NATO and the EU.

Ambassador Milovanovic: Look, I will not hide from you the fact that we all hoped that these elections were going to be better than 2006 because they should have been, because 2006 was already a considerable success.  It proved that you had the capacity, particularly institutionally, particularly the MOI, to do things professionally, without partisan bias.  Unfortunately, we are faced with a situation in which I think now Macedonia is at some serious risk of being seen not to have met the ODIHR criteria of free and fair elections.  We will see.  We hope that is not the case.  The direction is not good at the moment.  Can I say that people have listened?  We have certainly talked behind the scenes with everyone we can think of to talk with and we have done it behind the scenes because it is important that people in private be able to rethink their policies, rethink their instructions to their own political followers and quietly, in private, decide to change the way they are doing this.  Putting this in the front of the stage does not help.  Hopefully, people are going to learn privately to do the right thing and to give new instructions to their followers, and particularly when you are talking about people who have been exercising the role of governing coalition.  Those are folks who have an extra responsibility because they have the responsibility, not only of their followers and of their party, but also of the people who are in governing institutions.  Will we be out again as observers?  All of us will be out again as observers.  I will be out again with my daughter as I was in the past, my husband will be out, many, many people from the U.S. Embassy and from many other embassies will be out because we want to be able to contribute to there being a good result on the Election Day. 

ALSAT TV: Are you satisfied with the way in which state institutions have reacted so far regarding those that caused incidents?

Ambassador Milovanovic: I have to say that we are not entirely satisfied.  If you look at the ODIHR Interim Report that came out yesterday or the day before- it lists a number of areas in which there are problems.  I think we all know that a large number of violent incidents have taken place and almost no one has been identified as responsible for those.  Many of the incidents have been directed toward DUI offices or headquarters, one was directed toward the head of DUI Ali Ahmeti, other parties have also been targeted, or their followers have been targeted.  But, in virtually no instance has anyone been found.  This is not a good situation.  One has also a certain number of complaints that have been filed before the Electoral Commission, and in some instances the Electoral Commission has made some verdicts, but unfortunately, they are without effect.  For example, there is at least one candidate on a list who is actually ineligible, and is recognized to be ineligible because that individual has been convicted of a crime, which makes him ineligible.  However, no one is prepared, neither the court, nor anyone else, to remove him from the list.  So, these are the kinds of things that need to be addressed and addressed quickly, and I would say there is still a lot of work to be done to reach a normal standard. 

ALSAT TV: There is something that strongly impressed me, from the first joint statement with the ambassadors of OSCE and the EU, in which beside the general statement about fair and democratic elections, there was a warning not to abuse public institutions and funds at the central and local level for party pre-election aims.  Can this be considered a sign that you know of such concrete cases?

Ambassador Milovanovic: Well, let’s say that when we made those statements, it was preventive.  In general we work to try and prevent problems rather than have to deal with fixing problems after they have happened.  It’s why we are so concerned, for example, about ongoing intimidation.  If you wait until the intimidation is proven, you have lost the battle already.  As far as the misuse of public funds, it’s not that at the time we had particular evidence one way or the other but, here again, there are things like job offers, the possibilities of perhaps getting other kinds of benefits.  If those things are offered, specifically in order to get votes, or specifically in order to get publicity for a particular party, those are things that under any fair and democratic system should not be happening.  So, it is not a question of trying indirectly to suggest that we know someone is doing something.  That was a question of saying: these are the kinds of standards that are absolutely important.  Of course, people make campaign promises in every country, in my own country, but not “if you vote for me, I am going to give you this job,” or “I am already giving you the job and it will become a confirmed, permanent job once I know that you and your whole family voted for me.”  That’s the stuff we cannot accept. 

ALSAT TV: Based on all that was said, bearing in mind the incidents, UNDP recently warned about proxy voting and family voting, all of these remarks regarding possible abuse of official function for elections, … everything leads to the conclusion that Macedonia has a serious democratic deficit.  Would you agree with this conclusion, and do you think that it is high time that all leaders made a step so that your messages would no longer have to highlight the mistakes made?

Ambassador Milovanovic: Believe me, Macedonia is not the only country in the world that has a democratic deficit.  I think that the way this campaign is going is very disappointing because it should have been a lot better, and people should have been more professional in the way they handled things.  There are some things that institutions could have done that would have been better.  They also had a very short amount of time and perhaps that partially explains the problems.  But, I think that it is still time that people can pull themselves together. I think that what is important is that no matter how much has gone on up until now, how many violent incidents, how much intimidation, how many of these other things, if now, starting today, the leaders of these parties –all of them—say to their followers, to the people who will be observers at the polling stations, to the people who will be on the election boards: “you must respect the will of the voter, and you must not make it difficult to the voter to come to vote and you must not change the vote of the voter,” then there is  still a great deal of hope.  But, one thing that I would mention as I say “preventing people from voting,” I have a great concern that the level of quiet intimidation, people walking through towns perhaps with a weapon visible –not doing something, just being there, other kinds of intimidation -that these things are in part expected to make people feel like they are not going to be safe going to vote.  That would be a very, very bad message.  It is very important that people understand that they will be safe to go out to vote and that they should go out and vote, because unless individual citizens take that responsibility, despite the difficulties, and go out and express themselves, then no amount of foreign preaching is going to help anyone.  Ultimately, it is on your own citizens.  It is not easy, I am not saying it is easy, but believe me, a democracy in which people feel free and have a future-  it’s worth taking that risk.  

ALSAT TV: Will everything be OK on June 1?

Ambassador Milovanovic: I think that in terms of actual violence, probably there will be very little.  I could be entirely wrong; I hope I am not wrong.  What I hope to see is a lot of people coming out to vote, as I say, people not intimidated, and I am a bit concerned about the possibility of irregularities at various polling stations, the usual things that have happened to some degree in the past, proxy voting, ballot stuffing, taking the boxes away etc.  There will be many ODIHR monitors, we will be out monitoring, and obviously anything like that needs to be properly reported to authorities. That’s the kind of stuff I am more concerned about, but I am still hopeful, as I said, knowing that if there is the political will from the leadership of the parties to do the right thing, you can do it, I am hoping that those political leaders will take the right decision and will instruct all of the people who are supporting their parties to behave themselves and to do the right thing. 

Closing words:  Ambassador Milovanovic, thank you for being a guest on Alsat.  That was the U.S. Ambassador, Gillian Milovanovic just a few days before the end of the campaign, in another attempt, and with yet several other strong messages to the parties and the voters, in order to achieve the final aim- Macedonia to fulfill the first and indispensable pre-condition – fair and democratic elections on June 1.  Thank you for being with us.