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Macedonia votes in shadow of violence Thu May 29, 2008 9:15am EDT By Kole Casule SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonians vote on Sunday in a parliamentary election marred by campaign violence and held against a backdrop of uncertainty over progress towards European Union and NATO membership. The conservative VMRO-DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is expected to win the most seats in the 120-seat parliament on a surge of nationalist sentiment after neighboring Greece blocked a NATO invitation in April. But it is unclear if his party will win an absolute majority. The next government will face pressure to get NATO accession back on track, start talks on joining the European Union and calm tensions after weeks of tit-for-tat violence between rival ethnic Albanian parties. "These elections are indeed crucial," the EU ambassador in Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, told Reuters, noting Brussels would be keeping a close eye on violence and irregularities. "It would be very important for the country to pass the test ... if it were to get a recommendation from the European Commission for opening negotiations." Gruevski's fractious multi-ethnic coalition -- in office for less than two years -- called an election after the NATO snub, rattling nerves already on edge after a February declaration of independence by Kosovo Albanians on Macedonia's northern border. Around 25 percent of Macedonia's 2 million people are ethnic Albanians, living mainly in the north and west. Western nations narrowly averted an ethnic war in 2001, using the lure of NATO and the EU to squeeze greater minority rights from the government and get Albanian guerrillas to disarm and enter politics. Despite progress on ethnic relations, the country is still largely poor, unstable and hamstrung in its progress by a 17-year dispute with Greece over Macedonia's name. UNEASY PEACE The vote is unlikely to change much as no leading Macedonian party is ready to appease Athens and change the country's name. Macedonia, which split from Yugoslavia in 1991, has the same name as Greece's most northerly province. Athens says Skopje must use a compound name such as "New" or "Upper" Macedonia. In addition to thwarting the NATO bid, the row is likely to undermine Skopje's efforts to start accession talks with the EU, key to wooing investment to Europe's poorest corner. Unemployment is at 30 percent, and corruption is rife. "I don't expect any huge changes," professor Vasko Naumovski of the New York University-Skopje told Reuters. "The current establishment, which is expected to win the election, is not ready for a compromise with Greece that could threaten the Macedonian identity." The delays in joining these prestigious Western clubs and getting the associated material benefits are threatening to undermine the uneasy peace in a region still jittery after a decade of ethnic conflict with the collapse of Yugoslavia. The country's Albanian minority see Macedonian insistence on the name as romantic nationalism that could cut off the country's path to prosperity and undermine their own rights. Poverty and frustration is now fuelling intense competition for control of the Albanian vote in the north and west, spilling over into minor armed incidents between the Democratic Party of Albanians and the Democratic Union for Integration of former guerrilla leader Ali Ahmeti. "A common desire to join NATO was one key thread holding both ethnic groups together," former U.S. ambassador and now Balkan commentator William Montgomery wrote this month. The NATO setback, he said, "is helping to drive one more wedge between these groups, as well as raising nationalist tensions in a country -- and region -- which absolutely needs exactly the opposite if it is ever going to stabilize." (Writing by Matt Robinson and Ellie Tzortzi; Editing by David Fogarty) __._,_.___ ยท 1
