Exit News interviewed Prof. Abdulla Mehmeti—one of the leading Albanian intellectuals in North Macedonia— on the political developments and the role of Albanians there. Prof.Mehmeti is a professor at the University of Tetovo and the Chairman of the Albanian-American Academy of Sciences based in Skopje.
Professor Mehmeti: Yes, unlike past elections, there has been a lot of commentary in the aftermath of last elections. I think the main reason for this was the much better result of Albanian parties compared to the last elections of 2016. However, we have pointed out the fact that although Albanian parties have collectively received 11.044 votes less than the last election, due to various reasons, they won 12 more MPs in the last elections bringing the number to 32 MPs (out of the 120 MPs) in the parliament of North Macedonia.
This is the highest result ever achieved by the Albanian political forces in Macedonia. Nonetheless, this result does not reflect the real potential for political representation of Albanians in the parliament of North Macedonia. Based on the total number of Albanians in Macedonia and the number of the eligible Albanian voters, Albanians can reach up to 45-50 MPs in North Macedonia.
Our future analysis should focus on why this potential has not been achieved so far.
Discrimination against Albanians during the Yugoslav communist regime was pervasive. Unfortunately, some of discriminatory practices have been perpetuated in the most sophisticated and perfidious ways and have been inherited by the Macedonian elites after the independence of Macedonia.
Based on our analysis and comparative data extracted from the state agency on statistics and other official institutions of Macedonia, Albanians make up around 35-40% of the total population of North Macedonia. The number of eligible voters should closely reflect the percentage of Albanians living here and based on the data available, political parties claiming to represent Albanians should strive to win close to 50 seats in the 120 parliament of North Macedonia.
However, this result has not been achieved for several reasons. One of the main reasons is not only the failure to conduct an accurate census– as some politicians and analysts claim– but is intentional falsifying of data on the number of Albanian citizens and eligible voters by government bodies, at all levels. This has been pointed out by various domestic and foreign investigative journalists and organizations who have conducted research on these issues in the recent years.
This may be one of the reasons why no comprehensive census has been conducted in North Macedonia since 2002. In 2011, the work on census commenced but the process was interrupted and never completed.
Regarding your second question, if the election results have been reflected in the government formation, my opinion is that Albanians are still under-represented, primarily due to the deep fissures and disagreements amongst Albanian parties. Albanian political parties have generally failed to cooperate and coordinate their political actions in the past, and this continued to be the main weakness affecting their political power.
Therefore, while Albanians will have a number of key positions in the newly formed government – including the Speaker of Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Prime Minister ( for only 100 days) towards the end of the government mandate – these positions are of symbolic significance. They are a welcome step in improving inter-ethnic trust between Macedonians and Albanians but will not yield the immediate results expected by Albanian voters. This is because some of the problems faced by Albanians are a legacy of systemic discrimination in the past and many of these problems remain undressed today.
The election result was not fully reflected in the government formation also due to the fact that personal and group interests of several Albanian leaders prevailed over a joint strategy of negotiating their representation in government as a political block of ethnic Albanian parties.
These success stories do not happen so often in politics; therefore, I think the failure to negotiate collectively will have long term repercussions for the Albanian parties and their voters.
This month marked the 19th anniversary of the Ohrid Framework Agreement of 13 August 2001. What can you say about the results of this peace agreement? Are there any outstanding issues that remain unimplemented and how do you see their conclusion?
The Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) was a general framework to end the armed conflict of 2001. Due to the circumstances surrounding the cessation of hostilities, OFA could not achieve a comprehensive, complete, and durable agreement and resolve all matters concerning the two main ethnic groups in this state, namely Albanians and Macedonians. Most of these problems are a legacy of the Yugoslav regime’s oppression and discrimination of Albanians.
This mentality of treating Albanians as second-hand citizens or treating them as “temporary tenants in their own homes” is deeply seated in the conscience of a high number of Macedonian citizens even today. Many Macedonian citizens see the rights of Albanians as contingent upon the good will of the ruling Macedonian elites and not as legitimate rights of Albanians who are indigenous in Macedonia. This ruling or dominating mindset fed by propaganda against Albanians does not permit our fellow Macedonian citizens to be liberated or emancipated and accept the Albanian recovery as a fact of life that does not diminish the rights of Macedonians.
Therefore, a lot of Macedonians see the improvement of the status of Albanians as a decrease of the rights of the Macedonians or a “zero-sum game of winners and losers”. Albanians have been subject of discriminatory practices and have been ruled against their will in various Yugoslav states since 1913 and especially 1945 when Macedonia was created as a state for the first time.
These underlying Albanian grievances formed the basis of the Albanian insurgency in 2001 which ended with the OFA. In my opinion, the OFA failed to resolve all the outstanding issues that Albanians face in Macedonia. Nor have they been addressed by the recent constitutional changes adopted in 2019 to reflect the Prespa Agreement with Greece on the state name.
The Constitution of North Macedonia still defines Albanians as a national minority and not an equal constitutive people of the state. Despite the notable improvements made through a new law on languages (not a specific law on Albanian language), the Albanian language is still not an official language in North Macedonia. It is simply defined as the language of the 20% of the citizens who speak a language differently from the official Macedonian language. The language parity does not exist in the constitution and applicable laws and remains a contentious matter for Albanians who do not accept the inferiority of their language in a shared state.
Although the OFA is specifically enshrined in the Constitution of North Macedonia, important aspects of it remain unimplemented. Key among these is the equal representation of Albanians in the state institutions which is still under 20 percent. The Albanian representation in certain institutions is very low. Until recently, the representation of Albanians in some institutions has been symbolic or even zero. This is the case in the special security forces, the government statistics entity, and other institutions defined as areas of “strategic interest” to the Macedonians. This discrimination persists because of the lingering mentality that Albanians are a minority in this state and their rights depend on the generosity of Macedonians.
The official discourse in the Republic of Albania claims that Albanians of North Macedonia have achieved impressive progress and have become key players in the stability and progress of North Macedonia. On the other hand, there is a lack of information on the actual situation of Albanians in North Macedonia and some of the challenges that you mentioned. Can you briefly describe what is the current situation of Albanians there?
Albanians are indeed a key factor to the stability and progress of North Macedonia. They have shown this continuously in the last three decades, especially in their steady orientation towards Macedonia’s integration in NATO and EU. But first and foremost, Albanians are the only ethnic community that has not objected or refused to recognize the Macedonian identity, history, language and culture which has been the case for other nations in the Balkan region like Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks.
Unfortunately, this friendly attitude of Albanians towards our fellow Macedonians has not been fully appreciated. In some cases, the positive attitude of Albanians has been met with indifference or even complicity of Macedonians towards the widespread discrimination of Albanian by the ruling elites in the shared state.
I agree with you that many generations of Albanians from Tirana know very little if anything about the Albanians in North Macedonia or other fellow Albanians outside state borders. On the other hand, within North Macedonia, the systematic propaganda has created a new model of Albanians, prone to euphoria and romantic nationalism. These people become easy prey to political parties and can be used as cannon powder by politicians who claim to act as guardians of the rights of Albanian nation. This has created a very strong sense of extreme politicization of many Albanians in North Macedonia, which is sometimes much stronger than the love for the “motherland”.
Religious institutions and some of the clergy – under the influence of ruling elites both under Yugoslavia and more recently – have worked incessantly to create a type of Albanian citizen who can hardly distinguish between national and religious interests. This has been the cause for the massive displacement of Albanians by the Yugoslav communist regime and the assimilation of hundreds of thousands of Albanian Catholics and Orthodox Christians in North Macedonia.
To go back to your question if Albanians are key players in North Macedonia, I would like to say that regardless of what the Albanian politicians in Macedonia say, Albanians remain extremely poor and this remains the main cause for massive emigration of Albanians.
The downsizing of Albanian population has been one of the strategic interests of the government in Macedonia. Unfortunately, in the last two decades, this interest is being accomplished because very high numbers of Albanians are moving abroad due to poverty, lack of jobs and opportunities.
This is a huge loss that cannot be compensated by any other political achievement of Albanian political parties. The size of the Albanian community affects their overall social, cultural, and financial potential and the population decrease will have an adverse impact on their political representation in the future.
How do you see the role of Albania and Kosovo in supporting the Albanians of North Macedonia and what are the expectations from Tirana and Prishtina?
Not only Albanians, but even their rivals have been fully aware that the Albanian community of North Macedonia is not an “abandoned child”, without any protection or care by their “mother state” Albania, irrespective of who was ruling there. The influence of ties of kinship has increased significantly in the aftermath of Kosovo’s independence.
I still think that Albania’s support to the Albanians of North Macedonia is insufficient. I am referring to Albania because Kosovo still faces problems in completing its statehood and achieving full international recognition and membership in international organisations.
What more could Albania do for Albanians in North Macedonia? I think most Albanians in the Balkans expect clear and strong leadership from Albania, which means that state officials from the Republic of Albania should not only lend support to their political and economic partners in Skopje or Prishtina. Instead, Albania should take a leading role in adopting long-term national strategies, programs, projects and action plans to help all Albanian communities in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Presheva Valley and Montenegro and the large diaspora in order to advance politically and economically. Regardless of their division by administrative or state borders, no one can prevent Albanians from creating the necessary institutions and mechanisms to act as “One Nation”.
Also no one is preventing Albanians to join their knowledge and financial capital to establish national institutions which are governed by the principles of democracy and rule of law and not criminal organizations and oligarchs.
In my view, all roads of Albanians living in the Balkans go through Tirana, but Tirana should lead by example, establishing strong democratic institutions, adhering to rule of law and European values and advancing in their path to EU membership. This requires responsible and progressive politicians which I do not see in Tirana, Prishtina or Skopje now.
