Kanal 5 TV, Macedonia’s second most watched television, is embroiled in a dispute after a rowdy debate that was cut short by the station’s director Ivan Mircevski.
The station has a long running daily debate show called Only the truth, whose main idea seems to be to pit combative commentators from the opposite sides of the political divide to duke it out for views and clicks. While the show is hosted by young journalists, Mircevski is known to manage the duels and direct the hosts while the debate is on-going. In this particular debate the guests were distinguished foreign policy journalist Goran Momirovski, who falls on the right, and ethnic Albanian politician and former member of Parliament Ismet Ramadani – who supported the idea that Macedonians must make additional concessions with their national identity – this time in favor of Bulgaria – so that the country continues its EU accession process and the Albanian community does not feel hampered by the Macedonian’s insistence to preserve their identity. Host Aleksandar Vidinovski gave some of the usual push back to Ramadani and the exchange became heated, as Ramadani accused the TV station of allowing strong criticism of the Albanian community. “Stop underestimating the Albanians. I tell you this as a moderate Albanian..” Ramadani said, hinting that ethnic tensions in Macedonia could worsen and the Albanians can radicalize if the Macedonian politicians don’t accept the Bulgarian demands and the EU accession path remains blocked.
This prompted Mircevski to call in the show, from his home, and strongly rebuke Ramadani. “You don’t have the right to say that my colleague is insulting our fellow citizens – Albanians”, Mircevski said, offended that the TV station was portrayed as critical of the Albanian community. Ramadani responded that Mircevski is trying to portray himself as “smarter than me” and refused to apologize, to which Mircevski ordered him off the show and eventually the debate was scrapped.
Ramadani also accused Kanal 5 of giving airtime to a journalist who warned that the Albanians will be crushed if the wars around Europe escalate and lead to another confrontation in the Balkans – Vidinovski, who also hosted this debate, rebuked the journalist’s comments.
While the argument was relatively tame, it quickly revealed a deep divide in Macedonian society, where for seven years now, the Government does not have the support of the majority of ethnic Macedonian voters, and is propped up by the Albanian parties – especially Ali Ahmeti’s DUI party of which Ramadani is supportive. This has brought great windfall to DUI, which, with the subordinate Alliance of Albanians party, controls half of the seats in the Government – even though Albanians have usually held about a quarter of the seats – which corresponds to their share of the total population. This disbalance has also allowed DUI to manage major lucrative projects, such as the highway project with the US Bechtel company, and to hold the Foreign Ministry at a time when the country is forced into difficult and divisive negotiations with Bulgaria on the Macedonian identity. Macedonians are angry at the sight of an ethnic Albanian Minister, who is personally unaffected by the Bulgarian demands, lead the negotiations and strongly advocate that more concessions are made by the Macedonians. Prime Minister Kovacevski recently angrily refused to respond to questions about the role DUI plays in the Government, and his deputy, ethnic Albanian SDSM party official Fatmir Bytyqi, walked out of the press conference in protest, after a mildly worded question.
This order of things is seen to be supported by the Western countries and their influential embassies in Macedonia. The US Embassy and the USAID program began this particular TV show on Kanal 5, funding it in order to get the TV station to have more voices critical of Nikola Gruevski’s Government during the Colored Revolution campaign that toppled VMRO-DPMNE and installed SDSM and especially DUI firmly in power. Ramadani is head of the Atlantic Council of Macedonia, which is indicative of the strong ties between the Western diplomats in the region and the Albanian politicians, and the disenchantment with the constant demands for concessions in the name of Western integration among ethnic Macedonians.
In light of this on-going dispute, and the coming general elections, the main political parties and activist groups quickly responded to the Kanal 5 debate. Civil, a strongly pro-SDSM organization that mixes political activism and news outlets, whose head is an ethnic Albanian, accused Kanal 5 of giving voice to nationalist Macedonian activists. Their spokesmen pointed to jokingly written social media posts, that mocked DUI’s rampant corruption, as evidence of the TV station’s nationalist positions. Ethnic Albanian commentators quoted by Civil and other outlets called on all Albanians to boycott the television.
Unfortunately this is not a lonely incident. This is another inglorious episode in actions of the anti-democratic installations that are trying to polarize the society with any means possible and want to generate tensions among the ethnic communities, said Civil’s Xhabir Deralla. This push was followed by some of the journalism associations who are closer to the Government, while the association of journalists that leans more toward the opposition came out in defense of Mircevski, insisting that a media outlet should not be forced to listen unfounded allegations against its journalists.
Unlike the country’s best watched Sitel TV, which has been forced by the Zaev regime to fire its main editors who were outspoken critics of the attacks on the Macedonian national identity, Kanal 5 is usually seen as more urban and middle of the road by the viewers. Founded by businessman Boris Stojmenov who made his money in the murky years of the 1990ies, Kanal 5 was intended as a pro-VMRO-DPMNE outlet while Stojmenov was Finance Minister in the first VMRO Government in 1998. But after he tried to bring down the Government, the station quickly changed its allegiance and became one of the most outspoken supporters of SDSM. After VMRO-DPMNE came back to power in 2006, Stojmenov and Mircevski changed their colors again, and became second fiddle to Sitel in supporting the Gruevski Government. This prompted a grovelling apology from Mircevski, broadcast live during an interview with SDSM official and former Kanal 5 editor Robert Popovski, when SDSM grabbed power with the Colored Revolution. Mircevski claimed that he did not have full competence over the TV station, “but now I have my competence back and I apologize in the name of the media outlet and in the name of all the employees to all who we have wronged. Kanal 5 is now in the middle. The time came and we decided to be in the middle ground”.
After the interrupted debate, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski came out in support of Kanal 5 and especially the host of the debate, who was accused by Ramadani. “He is a very professional young man, who does his job in line with professional standards. My experience is that he never leaves the slightest excuse to be characterized in a way that he was by the gentleman who ruthlessly accused him without any facts. It is normal that the people who lead this media outlet will react to this, and in my mind, the reaction was to be expected. I give full support to the media outlet”, Mickoski said.
SDSM, on the other hand, sent its officials such as member of Parliament Sanela Shkrielj to echo the criticism from Civil. “The behavior of the Kanal 5 manager is a direct attack on what should be the standard in journalism and independence of editorial policy. We lived with censorship and the limitations on free speech for years and yesterday we were reminded how that period looked like. We can’t allow to see our media outlets ruined and capturedf again, as was in the time of VMRO-DPMNE”, Shkrielj told Civil.
This ethnic division is likely to play out in the coming elections. VMRO-DPMNE easily dominates SDSM among the Macedonian voters, angry at the never ending string of concessions over the past seven years and the unprecedented powergrab by DUI and other Albanian parties. On the other hand, SDSM’s only chance in the elections seems to be to form a pre-election coalition with DUI, or at least paint VMRO as a nationalist party in the eyes of the Albanians, and hope that the Albanian parties remain kingmakers and again pick the weaker SDSM over the stronger VMRO.
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