April 4 (SeeNews) - Macedonia's EU integration will depend on the establishment of a stable, reform-oriented government, which appears to be a complicated task, independent watchdog organisation Freedom House said on Monday.
The state of democracy in Macedonia has worsened further due to the escalation of the political crisis, the serial rescheduling of the general elections, the increased political influence over the judiciary, and the persistence of impunity in cases of high-level corruption, Freedom House's latest reports indicated.
"The December elections failed to provide a conclusive resolution to the ongoing political crisis; neither major party was able to secure a clear majority," Freedom House said.
Macedonia's scores drop in four of seven categories, and remain unchanged in the other three.
The further escalation of the political crisis was caused by the presidential pardons, the lack of political dialogue, and the controversial functioning of the country's political institutions, Freedom House said.
"The year was marked by dysfunctional governance," the organisation said.
The watchdog sees the unfavourable climate for media independence in Macedonia as the key impediment to the country's democratisation.
"The persistent negative state of media freedom stems mainly from the progovernment orientation of chief media outlets, which are selectively backed with public funds designated for the government’s promotional activities and campaigns," Freedom House said. "Consequently, media outlets are substantially polarized along political, ethnic, and linguistic lines, and progovernment media are hostile to the opposition and significantly biased in their reporting."
Civil organisations in Macedonia remained excluded from policy making and the political process, the watchdog said. They continued to operate in unfavourable conditions, being stigmatised by the ruling party and the progovernment media. The Colorful Revolution and the Protestiram (I Protest) movement, which started to organise protests after the controversial decision of president Gjorge Ivanov to pardon 56 officials related to the wiretapping affair, as well as critically inclined NGOs were repeatedly intimidated by the government.
Details from the Nations in Transit report follow, as the ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest:
Macedonia |
2007 |
2016 |
2017 |
National Democratic Governance |
3.75 |
4.75 |
5.00 |
Electoral Process |
3.25 |
3.75 |
4.00 |
Civil Society |
3.25 |
3.25 |
3.25 |
Independent Media |
4.25 |
5.25 |
5.25 |
Local Democratic Governance |
3.75 |
4.00 |
4.00 |
Judicial Framework and Independence |
3.75 |
4.50 |
4.75 |
Corruption |
4.75 |
4.50 |
4.75 |
Democracy score |
3.82 |
4.29 |
4.43 |
Macedonia is struggling to form a government after the December early elections.
The elections, which were postponed twice, were part of an agreement brokered by the EU and the US. Under the agreement, the leaders of four, back then the biggest, parties agreed to conduct reforms and to organise free and fair elections.
The political crisis broke out in January 2015 when the leader of opposition SDSM Zoran Zaev accused the coalition government of conservative VMRO-DPMNE and ethnic-Albanian DUI of corruption, wiretapping illegally more than 20,000 people and covering-up a murder. The recorded conversations indicated manipulation of the local elections of 2013, intimidation of voters and public employees, faking of voter lists, use of phantom voters, and limitations on voter access to polling sites. It also revealed plans of high officials to take cuts from a multimillion-euro deal for the construction of two motorways, negotiating bribes to speed up a contract for surveillance equipment, violations of procurement procedures in order to profit illegally.
For its part, the government charged Zaev with trying to destabilise the country.