LOCAL PRESS

Dacic calls for joint approach to terrorism and migration (Tanjug)

“Whether it be terrorism or mass migration, we should all be aware no country is able to overcome these challenges alone,” Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic and OSCE chairperson-in-office said in Brussels at the opening of the conference “Europe in crisis: a call for a new dialogue 1975-2015: 40 years of the Helsinki Final Act”, held at the European parliament. Dacic pointed out that OSCE is in a position to play a more prominent role as a platform for dialogue and joint action, aiming to overcome the threats we are facing. “To this end, we need to work together to refine the Organization’s toolbox, strengthen its operational capability and effectiveness, including an adequate financial stability, so that it can be relied upon when ‘push comes to shove’,” he said. Speaking about the upcoming Ministerial Council in Belgrade, Dacic said that one of the priorities of Serbia’s chairmanship was the adoption of a decision on migration. “We firmly believe that interactive efforts of all the international stakeholders are vital for addressing this complex phenomenon. With its unique cross-dimensional approach to security, the OSCE can be an important ‘line’ of international efforts aimed at a sustainable resolution of the migrant crisis, respecting the human rights of all affected. We should particularly take into account that six OSCE Mediterranean Partners are also countries of the EU’s Southern Neighborhood,” Dacic said, and added: “Security in Europe and in the wider OSCE area largely depends on the situation in the neighboring regions. I believe that defining a strategic relationship with neighboring regions is vital for security in Europe and throughout the OSCE area.”

Stefanovic: Serbia is prepared for all scenarios, waiting for Germany’s decision (RTS)

Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic has told the morning news of Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) that Slovenia and Austria are already raising barbed wired fences at their borders. They threatened to close borders so the movement of migrants is becoming slower. The plan is for around 2,000 migrants to enter these countries on a daily basis, but Serbia cannot accept that since we don’t know what to do in case 8,000 people enter Serbia becasue we can let in only 2,000 on a daily basis. This is why we are requesting Europe’s assistance,” says Stefanovic. He adds that at today’s session of the Bureau for Coordination of Security Services he will recommend measures that can yield results. “Of course, it is on the prime minister to decide on this. We are resolute and responsible towards Serbian citizens as well, but also towards migrants passing through Serbia,” says the Minister. He says that Serbia is trying to be a good partner with all states in the region. “However, our neighbors are aware that we can slow down the movement of migrants in smaller numbers but we cannot leave them here. They neither want this nor can we accept them,” explains Stefanovic. He points out that different information arriving from Europe is being examined. “In the sense of migration flows, Germany’s decision is important and if they decide to slow down the movement of migrants, this will be a problem for us,” says Stefanovic. He explains that the Serbian Prime Minister, just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, doesn’t pass decisions based on daily politics. “We will monitor the events and regardless of what happens, Serbia will not be unprepared since we have been preparing for all scenarios,” adds the Minister. He also says that the level of security has been raised. “We have also raised the presence of security forces in places we consider critical points. We have also intensified intelligence activities,” says Stefanovic. He says that Serbia has for years been combatting any kind of threat and extremism and proof for this is that there has not been a serious terrorist operation in Serbia.

Slovenia will not close borders (RTS)

Slovenia will not close its borders, but it will undertake, in cooperation with neighboring states, all measures towards regulating flow of refugees and migrants, the communications bureau of the Slovenian government told a regular press conference. The statement by the Slovenian Embassy in Belgrade says that Slovenia will undertake all measures towards regulating flow of migrants based on available capacities and taking into consideration how many migrants it can accept, but these measures do not imply closure of borders.

Djuric: We are not interested in Pristina’s game (Novosti)

We will support the Serb List in the attempt for a full implementation of the coalition agreement and to take part equally with other members of the ruling coalition in the political life in Pristina, the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric tells Novosti on the occasion of the assessments of the Kosovo Serb political representatives that their participation in the provisional institutions would be pointless is Pristina doesn’t establish the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO).

How realistic is for Pristina to respect the coalition agreement, when it is destroying the Brussels agreement?

“Political stability that is based on the participation of all of its members is important for every government, including the provincial.”

Participation of the Serbs in the provisional institutions is the achievement of the normalization process that has been going on for five years. Do you think that the international community will allow for this to fall through now?

“The ZSO is our main motive for taking part in the Brussels dialogue, and for the Kosovo Serbs the main motive is participation in the political life. That is why Belgrade doesn’t accept ‘circus shows’ of Pristina and requests it to implement without delay everything that was agreed.”

What is happening with the dialogue after Pristina’s decision to suspend the agreement on the ZSO? Is it possible to hold a new round of negotiations by the end of January while the suspension is in force?

“We will certainly not sit idle and nervously wait what their constitutional court will state. We are not interested in that and Belgrade doesn’t accept Pristina’s game, since top political representatives harmonized the agreement on the ZSO with the EU mediation so Pristina needs to implement this agreement.”

If a deadlock in the dialogue occurs, can it postpone the opening of Chapter 35 with Serbia?

“It is clear to everyone that the present deadlock occurred because the Pristina authorities are killing the dialogue by not implementing the Brussels agreement that envisages the formation of the ZSO. I believe that, as Commissioner Johannes Hahn said when presenting the progress report, conditions have been acquired to open Chapter 35 this year. Primarily due to Belgrade’s commitment and constructiveness in the implementation of the Brussels agreement, and our contribution to progress in the process of normalization of relations with Pristina.”

REGIONAL PRESS

Fahrudin Radoncic to be the new minister of transport and communications (Radio Sarajevo)

At the last meeting of the leaders of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Alliance for Better Future (SBB) and the Croatian Democratic Union of B&H (HDZ B&H), dynamics of reconstruction of the Council of Ministers of our country was agreed. This is a continuation of the plan of the new coalition and the introduction of SBB at all levels of government, on the position of the Democratic Front (DF), which left the coalition a few months ago. As found out after the meeting that was held on Friday, Fahrudin Radoncic, leader of SBB, will be the new Minister of Transport and Communications of B&H. Dragan Covic, leader of HDZ B&H, said after the meeting that he is happy because they “managed to persuade Radoncic to take over this function, because he did not want it at the beginning.” “We know how useful he was in the last Council of Ministers (previously he was minister for security),” said Covic after the meeting. The procedure is the following: A special session of House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of B&H will be held at the end of the week in order to formalize dismissals, as well as the session of the House of Peoples. Radoncic will replace Slavko Matanovic (DF) at the ministerial position, and their candidate for the defense will replace Emir Suljagic, who is also from DF.

Conclusions on the meeting of SDA and SBB delegations (Fena)

Meeting of delegations of the SDA and the SBB was held today in Sarajevo, whose aim is to implement the Agreement on joint priorities. It was agreed that the Chairman of the Council of Ministers immediately starts the procedures regarding the reconstruction of the B&H Council of Ministers. Conversations between representatives of the party cantonal committees were supported for emergency reconstruction of the cantonal government. Conversations of the SDA and the SBB B&H regarding the implementation of the Agreement are continuing, as announced from the Department of Public Affairs of the SDA.

The request of Bosniaks on referendum in RS accepted (Nezavisne)

The Council for the Protection of Vital Interest within the RS Constitutional Court decided that the request of the Bosniak caucus in the RS Council of Peoples for determination of possible violations of the vital national interests of the Bosniak people in the Decision on the election of members of the Commission for the implementation of the referendum on 23 September 2015 is acceptable. Subject of decision of the Council, therefore, was the question of the acceptability of the request or whether there are conditions for discussion and deciding on the question if the decision potentially violated the vital national interests of the Bosniak people. The Council will make meritorious decision on the request in the time specified by the Constitution within the next 30 days, as confirmed by that court. The decision of the parliamentary majority on the referendum in the RS on the B&H judiciary was adopted in the RS Assembly on 15 July, but has never been published in the RS Official Gazette, therefore it never came into force.

New social unrest and ethnic-related violence possible in B&H (Bosna danas)

An US geopolitical intelligence and consulting firm has published an analysis on the occasion of 20 years since the Dayton Peace Agreement which stopped the war in B&H. It goes as follows:

B&H stakeholders’ inability to agree on a replacement for the Dayton Agreement will allow the country’s divisions to persist. Political fragmentation will continue to undermine B&H’s economy, meaning new episodes of social unrest and ethnic-related violence cannot be ruled out. The EU will continue to have some influence over B&H, but probably not enough to unite the country’s competing communities. November 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement, the milestone deal that ended the three-year B&H civil war between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks that cost around 100,000 lives. But two decades after the conflict’s end, the interethnic hostilities that generated the war persist. Critics of the agreement say it froze rather than solved the conflict, leaving each ethnic group unsatisfied with the results. Others say it created a political system that, in addition to being extremely complex, put too many decisions in the hands of foreign actors unaccountable to Bosnians. Most B&H politicians and foreign officials now agree that the Dayton Agreement has run its course, but they cannot agree on how to modify or replace it. So while the deal has been remarkably successful at securing peace in Bosnia, it may also contribute to new conflicts in the future. The Dayton Agreement divided Bosnia into two sub-states, the Federation of B&H (home to large Bosniak and Croat populations) and the Republika Srpska (RS) (home to a large Serbian population). A third, smaller entity, the Brcko District, was created in the late 1990s as a self-governing unit. A council of ministers on which the three main ethnic groups share equal representation officially governs the whole country, but the two sub-states enjoy significant autonomy over most political and economic issues. Complicating matters, the Dayton Agreement also established a Peace Implementation Council, a special commission with oversight of the implementation of the peace accord that enjoys governmental and legislative powers. The Peace Implementation Council includes representatives from 55 countries and international agencies and can annul legislation that violates the Dayton Agreement. It can also remove officials who violate the peace accord. While this system has brought some stability to B&H, it has also perpetuated ethnic divisions and complicated decision-making. B&H politics are still divided along ethnic lines, with each group afraid of losing power and influence relative to the other two. Many voters still support parties that represent their ethnic, rather than general, interests. This in turn causes a resurgence of nationalist rhetoric every time there is an election. And the ability of the three main ethnic groups to veto decisions made at the national level makes the B&H policy process extremely slow and ineffective. B&H also have different views regarding the future of their country, with Bosniaks generally supporting a unitary state with a strong central government and Croats and Serbs generally demanding more autonomy for their sub-states. (There are internal divisions, however: Some Croats are demanding a new sub-state in which they are the majority, while some Serbs demand full independence.) As a result, each group feels the Dayton Agreement has become obsolete, but they cannot reach a consensus on a new system to replace it. Inertia, fear among local elites of losing influence and prerogatives, and a large international presence are the glue keeping B&H together. This political and ethnic fragmentation has offered fertile ground for separatist feelings in the RS. Since becoming the RS President in 2010, Milorad Dodik has repeatedly threatened secession. Over the past five years, Dodik has frequently promised to call for a referendum on the RS’s future, vowing to protect ethnic Serbians from alleged attempts by the Bosniaks to take control of the sub-state. More recently, Dodik has focused his rhetoric on the B&H judicial system. In July, the RS’s parliament authorized a referendum to decide whether Bosnia’s state-level courts have power in the RS’s sub-state territory. The vote was scheduled for November 15, but it did not take place. Dodik has accused B&H’s state-level judiciary of being biased against Serb victims in war crimes cases. While Dodik has argued that the referendum is aimed solely at defining judicial powers, opposition parties have said that it represents a de facto declaration of independence. Russia has supported Dodik. In July, a Russian Foreign Ministry official criticized the inefficiency of B&H’s justice system and praised Dodik’s referendum plan. Moscow is in fact one of the main political allies of the RS, which Moscow sees as a way to maintain a political foothold in the Balkans. By contrast, the EU and the US have criticized the referendum, warning against its impact on B&H’s political and ethnic stability. And even the government of Serbia, traditionally one of the RS’s main supporters, said the vote should not be held. The Peace Implementation Council could annul the referendum results, but even so, political friction between the RS and the rest of B&H will continue. Dodik, for example, has said the Serbian sub-state will hold an independence referendum in 2018. Clearly, changes to the Dayton Agreement’s architecture of the B&H state are needed if such tensions are to be reduced. B&H’s extremely complex political system and ethnic configuration make change very difficult to achieve. None of the main ethnic groups is likely to make concessions in what has become a zero-sum game, meaning political and ethnic friction is likely to persist. The resulting political fragmentation will continue to undermine B&H’s economy. According to the International Monetary Fund, B&H’s GDP will grow by 2 percent in 2015 and by 3 percent in 2016. However, the country’s large public sector, where corruption and nepotism are commonplace, will prove difficult to reform. Attempts to do so will face strong resistance, both from interest groups and from workers and people who depend on the state. As a result, B&H will continue to depend on foreign aid to function. The EU, for example, has allocated some 166 million euros ($178 million) in financial assistance to Bosnia for the 2014-2017 period, while the US has promised $37 million in assistance for 2016. B&H also receives significant aid and investment from Turkey. Unemployment will remain quite high, with the gray economy offering only partial relief for the unemployed. According to the World Bank, almost a third of B&H’s active population is unemployed (with almost two-thirds of those under 24 unemployed). This means that B&H will continue to see sporadic episodes of social unrest and anti-establishment protests. In February 2014, the country was rocked by street demonstrations against state corruption and high unemployment. The protests were notable because they were not fuelled by ethnic issues, but by social and economic problems. On top of these structural challenges, B&H faces fallout from the European refugee crisis and from organized crime and Islamist militancy. As more countries along the Balkan route start closing their borders and building fences, a larger number of asylum seekers from the Middle East and South Asia will get stuck in the Western Balkans in the coming months. This will increase the likelihood of violence in the region, whose pre-existing problems (which range from ethnic tensions to high unemployment) could worsen as the number of involuntary migrants rises. Meanwhile, organized crime will continue to plague B&H for the foreseeable future since the country’s weak judicial system and feeble border controls continue to make it an attractive transit route for drug and human trafficking into Western Europe. Religious extremism is another source of concern for B&H and international officials. In November, a B&H court sentenced a Muslim preacher to seven years in prison for inciting terrorism and recruiting fighters for the Islamic State. Several hundred Islamic State fighters are believed to have traveled to Syria and Iraq from B&H, Serbia, Albania and Kosovo over the past three years, and some have returned to the Western Balkans. Making matters worse for B&H stability, the stabilizing influence the EU has played in B&H is waning. The EU still wields some influence in B&H politics. In 2003, the EU identified B&H and other countries in the Western Balkans as potential candidates for membership in the Continental bloc. A stabilization and association agreement, a document that establishes a series of economic, political and social reforms that B&H must implement before it can become an official candidate country, entered into force in 2015. In broad terms, the B&H establishment supports EU accession. A recent report by the European Commission said B&H is “back on the reform track,” but stressed that cooperation and coordination between all levels of government remain problematic. More important, the combination of B&H’s difficult reform process and the EU’s political crisis will slow down B&H’s EU accession. As the prospect of membership dims, so too will the EU influence in B&H wane, with serious consequences for the country. If local politicians feel that B&H does not stand a real chance of eventually joining the EU, they will probably lack the incentive to implement reforms. In this scenario, populist and nationalist rhetoric would continue, making ethnic conflict a permanent threat. At the same time, high unemployment and a lack of meaningful prospects for economic growth will continue to create a fertile ground for social unrest and protests against the establishment.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbia Promises Extra Vigilance At Border But Condemns Anti-Muslim Sentiment (breitbart.com, by Donna Rachel Edmunds, 16 November 2015)

The Serbian government has announced plans to step up border checks on refugees following the discovery that one of the terrorists involved in the Paris attack on Friday night passed through the country en-route to France. But they have refused to back away from policies aiding migrants crossing their territory, and officials have been at pains to stress that they will not allow an “anti-Muslim campaign” to take root. As many as 10,000 migrants a day have been entering Serbia over the last month, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, determined to make their way north from Greece and Turkey into Western Europe. Investigations by the French authorities have confirmed that one of the Paris gunmen, known only as ‘A.A.’ used this exodus of people as cover for his own movements across the continent by posing as a Syrian refugee. Arriving on the Greek island of Leros on October 3, he is now known to have travelled onwards to Serbia, registering at Serbia’s southern border crossing of Presevo on  October 7, where he formally applied for asylum, Euractiv has reported. In a statement, the Serbian Ministry of Interior announced: “Checks have revealed that his data match the data of the person identified in Greece on October 3. No Interpol arrest warrant had been issued for this person.” Serbia’s Minister of Interior, Nebojsa Stefanovic, has told the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation (RTS) that Serbia is “stable”, as regards security, but confirmed that he would be stepping up the involvement and readiness of Serbia’s intelligence and security services. “That means we will increase control of the migrant flow through our country in the sense of additional identification of all individuals. We will raise an additional level of readiness of the forces fighting terrorism,” he said.

However, he insisted that there was no need for Serbia to alter its policy on the migrants, and added that the government “will not allow any sort of anti-Muslim campaign.” In contrast to its northern neighbour Hungary, Serbia has maintained a policy of facilitating the migrants with aid as they make their way through the territory, and has so far not built any form of wall or fence to stymie the migrant flow. His words were echoed by that of Serbia’s Minister of Labour, Aleksandar Vulin, who told RTS that he did not expect any change in attitude towards refugees passing through the country in the light of the Paris attacks. According to Vulin, some 3,000 migrants were staying in the Presevo border camp on Saturday morning, and a further 2,000 were awaiting transportation to Croatia. He insisted that Serbia was leading the way when it came to dealing with the migrants by ensuring that their needs were met whilst making sure that the Serbian peoples’ lives were not disrupted. So far there has been little demand from Serbian parliamentarians for a change to the official migrant policy, with just one Parliamentary party, the Eurosceptic Serbian People’s Party, daring to swim against the tide. The party holds just one seat in the Parliament. Party leader Nenad Popovic has made his views clear, however, saying that the Paris attacks were a demonstration of what awaited Europe if it continued to allow Islamic terrorists to enter its territory freely along with the migrants. He has called for Serbia to close its southern border with Macedonia, deploy the army, and build a wall.

Tear gas fired inside and outside Kosovo parliament (Reuters, by Fatos Bytyci, 17 November 2015)

PRISTINA – Opposition lawmakers in Kosovo fired tear gas and pepper spray in parliament on Tuesday and police clashed with rock-throwing protesters in a deepening political crisis over relations with former master Serbia. Protesters threw rocks, bottles and petrol bombs at police and parliament in the capital, Pristina, rallying in support of opposition lawmakers who for a fourth time disrupted the work of the assembly with tear gas and, on this occasion, pepper spray.

The opposition is demanding the government scrap a European Union-brokered deal to regulate ties between Serbia and Kosovo, its former southern province, which declared independence in 2008. In particular, they oppose the creation of a so-called “association” of municipalities populated by minority ethnic Serbs, which would have greater local powers and the right to some financial links with Belgrade. Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 1999, when NATO bombed for 11 weeks to stop the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency. The territory of 1.8 million people declared independence in 2008 and has been recognised by more than 100 countries, including the major Western powers. But the EU wants the two to regulate their relations as Balkan neighbours if either are to make progress towards eventual membership of the bloc. Tuesday’s protest was led by opposition lawmaker Albin Kurti, who has set off tear gas in parliament several times in recent months. He fired pepper spray at police. “I pointed the pepper spray at the prime minister and the government because they created the ‘association’,” Kurti told Reuters in the assembly. “The police just happened to be in the wrong place.” Lawmakers, who were due to debate the government’s proposed budget for next year, left the chamber. They moved to another room in the building and later approved the budget at a first reading. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said the opposition’s actions were “criminal”. “I ask the institutions to take measures, because the state is in question,” he told reporters. (Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Montenegro’s fractious opposition takes to the streets (DW, 16 November 2015)

Around 3,000 people in Podgorica have protested against the government of Milo Djukanovic, convinced that their voices on the streets are louder than their ballots. Nemanja Rujević reports from Montenegro. “Milo, you thief,” the crowd chants in the Republic Square in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica. Then a speaker says the word “thief” is too weak to describe the evil that Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic has caused during his 24 year rule. “Milo, you murderer,” retort the spectators immediately. “You are this dictator’s nightmare,” shouts Slaven Radunovic, one of the leaders of the opposition Democratic Front, to the crowd from the stage. More speeches follow, punctuated with the words “dictator” and “regime” to keep the demonstrators’ attention. The Djukanovic era has already lasted far too long, the people here say. They describe corruption and nepotism, from the distribution of jobs through the grace of the party to the economic misery in which many of the 620,000 citizens of this small Balkan country live. The current prime minister was just 26 when in 1989, he eked out an important role in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the so-called Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution. After Yugoslavia broke up in 1991, he shaped Montenegro’s fate. He was chief ideologue of its 2006 split with Serbia. Djukanovic’s dominance of the political landscape has become so self-evident that his rivals seldom make the effort to speak his name. They simply say “he.” “We want to put an end to this hell and this slavery. The streets brought him to power; the streets will disempower him,” Mirela Dobljanic hopes. The fragile pensioner has to get by on just 250 euros ($270) a month. “How shall I pay for my medication?”

NATO is a taboo word

A Montenegrin and a few Serbian flags are flying this evening; small groups sing nationalistic Serb songs. The protests are being led by a pro-Serbian party that still curses Montenegro’s independence and vehemently opposes the Balkan country joining NATO. Djukanovic has declared membership in the alliance to be his highest goal: many prominent faces campaign for it from billboards. Djukanovic treats the anti-government demonstrations as an attempt to spoil NATO membership just before the country receives an invitation to join, which observers expect at the beginning of December. But the speakers at the demonstration refrain from using anti-NATO slogans. The reason: There are also political powers in the Democratic Front who favor Atlantic integration. After the recent polls, the alliance advanced to become the strongest opposition group, but after a lot of disputes and splits, polls suggest it can only count on around 8 percent of the vote. The speakers call for an interim government that should have the task of organizing the country’s first really free elections. Other opposition parties don’t support the demonstrations. “But they are the only way,” says Aleksandar Jankovic. The young father of two has no job and no trust in the institutions. “Our rulers cannot be deposed through elections. The situation is the same in Romania or in Arab countries, where the people are forced to go out onto the streets. As God wishes, this is also how it will be for us.”

Everything is peaceful

There is still evidence of damaged windows from the riots at the end of October, when around 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets. The official version of events was that hooded hooligans attacked the police first. But some social network users believe the violent perpetrators were government provocateurs. The protests ended in chaos with dozens of injuries. Three protest leaders are to be charged with “calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order” and attacks on the police, as soon as their parliamentary immunity is lifted. On the other side, only two police officers from the notorious anti-terror unit are being investigated, despite video pictures showing security forces beating citizens. This time, there were no acts of violence. A human chain around the “dictator-occupied institutions” – that was opposition’s plan. Some stood with candles in the chain, many with light torches. “We are so many that we could also encircle the Beijing government quarters,” one opposition deputy called at the end. The statement is more an example of exuberance, as Beijing would be too big for the 3,000 demonstrators. But for the government quarter of the tiny state it was enough – the government building, the parliament and the presidential seat in the center of Podgorica are located next to each other. Were a few thousand people too few to pressure the undisputed leader into changing his mind? Or were they not so few at all, in a country where most people are apathetic and have become apolitical because they are convinced that change is impossible. Blazo, a young political scientist, who just came by, says he doesn’t know the answer. “I think the swing has already been lost. There are always new protests. It’s the same as if you suffer from sleepiness and you’re always setting your alarm clock back another ten minutes.” What was lacking, he said, was younger opposition members who want to overturn the whole corrupt system: “These opposition members have been in the scene here for the last 25 years.” Quickly and quietly, the crowds disappeared from the center of Podgorica – with the message that the protests would continue in other Montenegrin cities. The police, keeping a low profile in side streets, packed up their shields and cans of tear gas. This time there was no deployment.

New Macedonia Party Aims for Left-Wing Revival (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 17 November 2015)

A new left-wing party in Macedonia formed by social justice activists says it aims to mobilise disaffected voters who are against Nikola Gruevski’s government but do not trust the current leftist opposition. The new party called Levica, formed by activists from the leftist social justice movements Lenka and Solidarnost, said on Monday that its main goal will be toppling embattled Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his ruling VMRO DPMNE party, which has been in power since 2006. “Macedonian conditions demand a serious and dedicated team that will unite the current disparate resistance movements into one organized force, comprised of new, emancipated and class-conscious young people who, as in the past eight years, will always articulate the voice of the silenced,” the party’s founders said in a statement. Zdravko Saveski, an activist and one of the founders of Levica, argued that discontent with Gruevski is enormous but that many people simply do not trust the current opposition, the Social Democrats, enough to cast their votes for them. “In such conditions, we are forming a party not to divide the opposition but to secure the dethronement of the autocrat [Gruevski],” said Saveski. The party plans to compete alone at the forthcoming general elections in April, which are being held early in an attempt to put an end to the political crisis which has gripped Macedonia this year. The crisis revolves around the opposition Social Democrats’ claims that covertly recorded tapes of official conversations, which the opposition party has been releasing since February, show that Gruevski was behind the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people. The Social Democrats say that the tapes contain incriminating evidence on many senior officials. Gruevski denies the allegations against him, insisting that the tapes were “fabricated” by unnamed foreign intelligence services and given to the opposition to destabilise the country. Levica said it plans to offer an ‘authentic’ leftist movement that stands on the side of the poor, something that it said the Social Democrats have failed to do. “The leftist parties thus far, especially when in power, have not been instigating true leftist policies regarding privatisation [of formerly state-owned companies during the 1990s] and the decrease in workers’ rights and social benefits,” Saveski said. The new party, which does not hide its sympathies with Greek counterparts SYRIZA, now needs 1,000 signatures to officially submit its registration. Social justice movements Lenka and Solidarnost have been vocal critics of Nikola Gruevski and his centre-right VMRO DPMNE party, staging protests against various government policies. But the activists involved in launching Levica say they will not shut down the two movements with the formation of the party, but rather take their struggle from the streets to parliament.