Thousands of protesters rallied in Macedonia on Sunday, demanding Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski resign over wire-tap revelations that have plunged the Balkan country into its worst political crisis since flirting with civil war in 2001.
Crowds, including members of Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority, thronged the central avenue in front of Gruevski’s government office, angry over a flood of damaging wire-tap disclosures that the West says have cast serious doubt on the state of democracy in the ex-Yugoslav republic.
Opposition leaders say some demonstrators plan to camp out in the streets until Gruevski resigns.
Refusing to do so, the conservative leader has called his own rally for Monday, stoking fears of confrontation in the country of two million people 14 years after it narrowly avoided all-out civil war during an ethnic Albanian insurgency.
“I locked my shop, packed my things and came to Skopje,” said 45-year-old demonstrator Andrej Poposki, who had travelled by bus from the town of Prilep, 130 km (80 miles) south of Skopje. “We have to take a stand and confront the criminals. They belong in jail, not in government.”
Gruevski is at the centre of a scandal that broke in February, when opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev began releasing what he says is a mountain of wiretaps gathered illegally by the government and leaked to him by a whistleblower.
Dubbed “bombs”, the tapes appear to point to tight government control over journalists, judges and the conduct of elections after nine years of Gruevski rule.
Gun battle
Gruevski has not disputed that the voices are genuine but says that he did not order the recordings and that the tapes have been doctored. Zaev has been charged with violence against the state.
Macedonia wants to join NATO and the European Union, but progress has been blocked for years by a long-running dispute with neighbouring Greece over the country’s name. During that time, critics say Gruevski has shifted right, stoking nationalism and monopolising power.
Western diplomats in Skopje are trying to mediate a solution to the crisis, questioning the government’s commitment to democracy and European values.
On May 9 and 10, a police raid on a northern ethnic Albanian neighbourhood left 18 people dead: eight police officers and 10 Albanians described by the government as terrorists.
Gruevski, in coalition with ethnic Albanian former guerrillas, said police had thwarted a terrorist plot, but Albanians and some foreign analysts said the timing suggested the government was trying to create a diversion.
“If I back down it would be a cowardly move. I’ll face down the attacks,” Gruevski told pro-government broadcaster Sitel TV on Saturday.
Sulejman Rushiti, an ethnic Albanian former education minister under Gruevski, joined the protest.
“This is the first time I have physically protested together with Macedonians,” he told Reuters.
Weighing in on Saturday, Russia’s foreign ministry accused “Western organisers” of trying to foment a revolution.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday said he suspected a connection to Macedonia’s refusal to join European sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, and its possible role as a transit country for Russian gas through Turkey.
