President of main opposition party in FYROM, Zoran Zaev, held another in a series of publication of phone-recordings, files of which were delivered to him from UBK (secret police) workers who did that due to ethics. Audio recording of conversations between PM Nikola Gruevski and his subordinates apparently involve manipulation with money for purchase of enormous piece of land in Skopje’s elite suburb of Vodno. It is noteworthy that the conversations were carried via common, trivial speech (surprisingly full of Serbian words typical for city of Skopje, but which is not used as official standard).
The phone calls of this particular press-conference in Social-Democratic Party of FYROM (SDSM) were thematically organized by presenting solely Gruevski as a central figure, who used very authoritarian rhetoric to organize support for collecting money by oligarchs, in exchange for concessions. One of most interesting conversation was a talk by Nikola Gruevski convicting the skeptical Minister Mile Janakievski to change illegally urban planning so that two modernist-style era buildings in central Skopje should gain pseudo-neo-classical façade (as a part of anachronism “Skopje 2014” whose goal is creation of imaginary links between Macedonians of antiquity and the Slavic people who use that name after 1943).
While part of the sympathizers of Zaev accuse him for not presenting materials on a more fast pace, nevertheless, the idea for creating thematic, topical selection of phone-recordings seems to be a strategy that works. It should be emphasized that not a single TV station covered any of Zaev’s press-conference and that only leftist portals organize direct broadcast on Internet.
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO SDSM’S PRESS-CONFERENCE, 26-III-2015
“Today, to the domestic and international public, it is clear that there is no freedom and democracy in Macedonia [sic], that the European values have been completely destroyed. Until now, among everything else, we proved how dishonest was Nikola Gruevski, when he cares about his own interest. He purchased enormous, attractive location in Vodno, which are worth millions of euro, he was hiding behind off-shore companies, formed to suit his needs. What you will see and hear tonight, you will understand that lands and off-shore companies are only a small evidence for the lack of honor by Nikola Gruevski, but also about his megalomaniac appetites. Today, we shall be witnesses of the cruel and bitter truth, which shall confirm that all of these years, Gruevski, by whose orders citizens were arrested and punished on every step, in the name of justice and laws, is actually the one for whom neither law nor constitution nor conscience apply”.