Author: Sefer Selimi Jr.
The pre-election campaign is the fertile land behind which demagogues and populists are always searching, with their machiavelism sowing promises to reap the votes of the citizens. And of course, besides promises, the environment in which they operate best is dominated by verbal strife’s among party militants, reckless accusations, slander, conspiracy and degradation of the opponent. The cherry on the top of the cake are mother-and-dad swearings, most of the cases filled with spelling mistakes and combined with language barbarism. In this toxic environment, the qualitative debate at first glance seems lost and the few individuals who try to objectively see themselves are anathemized by wearing the clothes of one party at a time and the other party next time.
Although this situation is too discouraging to be engaged in public debate, the least that needs to be done is to remain silent and give the complete convenience of having our vital issues and daily problems left up for discussion within the superficial clash of parties.
There are four magical questions that many politicians can take away from the demagogue’s clothes and give them a clearer picture of what their promises are in fact sober, sincere and serious: How, Where, When, Who?
Almost 30 years have passed since the change of political system in North Macedonia and there is no politician who has gone on the political scene and has not promised to fight corruption but all have failed, worse, many have been or have become corrupted in the meantime so when politicians promise to fight corruption, however paradoxical and unbelievable it may seem, do not hesitate to ask: How will you fight it, with what specific mechanisms and measures? What will be the focus of this war, so which sector is your priority? When will we see the first results and who will be responsible for it? If their answers are barren, heard before, they have no clear vision and no concrete details – know they are lying to you.
The life quality of the citizens depends on the governing policies and when the governing policies are built by weak politicians than the quality of life will be the same. So today, we have an education system that is currently producing massively semi-literate illiterates, graduates who know how to read and write but are unable to construct a logical paragraph. We live in a state full of mountains and forests, while we breathe the most polluted air in Europe. We have great administration and small, bad services. We pay taxes and lack investment. We have public hospitals, but we need to recover in private ones. And a number of problems that we do not need to ascertain because we all live with them in our daily lives and are fully aware.
The time for accountability is approaching, and we will head to the polls on April 12 but we must not allow the debate to be hijacked by party whistleblowers who want to defocus us from the real problems in order to pave the way for demagogy and populism to dictate our decision. When politicians promise you do not forget to ask them: How, Where, When and Who!