Republic of Macedonia

Political Parties

League of Democracy

The Party Platform was declared on November 21, 1989, while the founding assembly took place in the Drama Theatre in Skopje, February 11,1990. On June 8, the same year, the party was formally registered, it held its first congress on November 21, 1992, and ceased to exist in May, 1993.

In this period of about 3 years, the League of Democracy, regardless of the fact that it never won a representative in Parliament, showed extraordinary activity and interest in shaping the Macedonian internal and foreign politics, bitterly criticising at the same time the current govt and defining the main focus points the struggle for democracy would concentrate on. Its most exploited slogan, launched back in the times before the first elections, was "Macedonia -- a decent place to live in".

The party's primary image was that of a classical (old- fashioned), non-national and beyond-national party, maximally critic, public and open in its work. Having an especially stressed anti-Communist orientation (the first point of the party's Election Program was "Correction of most painful evils done by communism), the League won over sympathisers with some of its vital basic orientation points. "Neither communism, nor socialism, but democracy" or "Legal state - primary task" are the League's basic determination goals. Besides its requests for denationalisation, returning back of the Church properties to the Church itself, privatisation of state-owned enterprises, local self-government, changing of the Macedonian name and state symbols, as well as reform of the legislature (Election Program, announced 17 September, 1990), this party was the first to open the issue of rehabilitation, i.e., the need to abolish all court sentences based on highly idealised communist laws, and was also the first to insist on strict implementation of the principle of reciprocity with all neighbouring states (Party's Program, published in "The Democratic Forum", 29 June, 1990).

In spite of all that, the League experienced a real fiasco even during the first round of elections, when, except for 3 of its candidates, no candidate received the necessary majority of votes to continue the race. The party ended the elections with only one township assembly seat in Sveti Nikole and loud remarks and protests against the text of the elections, especially those in Kumanovo and Kratovo, followed by an appeal to the Macedonian Supreme Court. Their most famous step from this period is the criminal charges brought against "N.N. directors of N.N. companies, on grounds of unauthorised transfer of finances from the firms' accounts in the period of 1-9 September, 1990, to the bank accounts of political parties they belonged to (SKM-PDP, SPM, and SRSM), in order to finance their political campaigns."

The League of Democracy was the first party to publish all its views, demands, and goals in its paper "The Democratic Forum", the first issue of which was published on June 29, 1990. Yet, a larger influence on the party's image was imposed by its president Dr Gjorgi Marjanovic, a law professor at the Skopje University. His public tribunes, during which he, as a real fighter and saying all he had to say, openly criticised the current govt in his specific way, as well as all wrong trends, at all times attracted public attention and reactions by the parties in question. Many of his statements are still remembered, like the one on the people bound to have exactly a kind of govt it deserves, or the one on the birth of a coalition govt presenting "political unnatural promiscuity among Macedonian crypto-communists and Albanian nationalists". In the post-election period, the party gradually died out, with its last "semi-shine" in the Fall of 1992, during the voting on the 3 emptied parliament seats. At the elections in the electoral unit 111, the central settlement, closest to victory after the winner Nikola Popovski of SDSM, was Alexander Tortevski, candidate of the League of Democracy. The League's candidate in the electoral unit 90 (Gazi Baba) came out third in the elections. besides the fact these elections showed certain rise in popularity of the League, it ceased to exist as soon as May, next year, with the exception of its branch in Prilep.

"Faced with these and certain other reasons, the Executive Committee decide for the second option: to join the Democratic Party led by P. Gosev, to "sacrifice" its party individuality, in order to be able to more clearly and more sincere support his efforts in uniting all democratic forces; When a party practically "destroys" itself, it can by no means be accused of calculations, profiteering On the other hand, we thought it best (and rightfully so) to set an example for other parties primarily concerned with the bloom of democracy, establishment of a legal state and welfare for the Macedonian people." (Gjorgi Marjanovic, "The Democratic Forum", June, 1993). This practically put a definite end to this party with short, but very tumultuous history, which will be remembered by the public for its "poisonous" tongue and open critics and confrontations with the "pro-regime" media, parties in power (with special emphasis on Ljubosav Ivanov, deputy of the Socialist Party, on whom the League created a theory of "Dzingocracy" and "Dzingoland"), state organs, and many more.

The founding of the Democratic Party, led by Petar Gosev, former SKM-PDP President, is by no means a continuity in the existence of the League of Democracy, despite the fact that 6 out of the 15 members of the Democratic Party's highest committee are former League members. The Democratic Party held a founding assembly on June 27, last year, and its forming had been announced in parliament back in April tat year, directly by its President Petar Gosev, which also put an official end to his membership in SDSM. Besides the League of Democracy, in the same way of "self-destroying", the Democratic Party was also joined by "Ilinden -- Free Democrats", the Green Party and the Reform Party of Ohrid. Thus, this party is today presented by 3 MP's (Petar Gosev, Mihail Panovski and Risto Jovanov), and, according to the number of new members at its founding assemblies throughout Macedonia, is a party which will have to be seriously counted on during the coming elections. Speaking of the popularity of the Democratic party, it is only fair to mention that the League of Democracy, no longer existing, also gave its contribution to this. Its goals and behaviour are in fact the unbreakable history tie with the long past beginnings of democracy in Macedonia.