Bajram Rexhepi of the National Alliance for Integration (left) and Bilall Kasami of Vlen face off in one of the BIRN debates ahead of local elections in North Macedonia. Photo: BIRN.
North Macedonia’s local elections this weekend are the focus of a fierce political battle for supremacy between parties representing the country’s large ethnic Albanian population, but many voters are more preoccupied with issues closer to home.
Amid a campaign that has largely veered off into wider national and ethnic topics, in a series of seven BIRN-moderated TV debates – in which mayoral contestants from Albanian-dominated municipalities outlined their plans for the next four years – local issues affecting voters’ everyday lives dominated the agenda.
Issues such as urban planning, infrastructure, education, water supply, transparency and gender equality were at the forefront during the DebatPernime series of seven debates, broadcast in Albanian in both North Macedonia and neighbouring Kosovo.
In one of the biggest Albanian-dominated municipalities, Tetovo in western North Macedonia, incumbent mayor Bilall Kasami, who is seeking another mandate, trumpeted his achievements with essential services.
“When I took over Tetovo [in 2021] I found it without [a regular] water supply and no strategic document on priorities where we need to intervene to improve the situation,” said Kasami, the candidate for the VLEN [It’s Worth It], alliance, a junior member of North Macedonia’s governing coalition at national level.
If he is re-elected, Kasami vowed to improve local education.
Bajram Rexhepi, his rival from the National Alliance for Integration, which is led by the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI – a former ruling coalition member at national level and a strong rival to VLEN – had his own quality-of-life promises to offer.
Rexhepi pledged “a greener, cleaner” town. “In the initial months, we will establish a public enterprise, ‘Tetovo’s Roads’, which will be equipped and staffed and will be dealing with all the urban planning in the town,” Rexhepi said.
At national level, both VLEN and the DUI have framed Sunday’s polls as a symbolic referendum on who should represent ethnic Albanians in a country where they make up about a quarter of the 1.8 million residents.
The DUI, relegated in last year’s general elections to the opposition benches, despite winning more votes than VLEN, after spending most of the past two decades in government, is fighting to reclaim its lost position.
VLEN, meanwhile, hopes to cement its newfound leading position, after replacing the DUI in government last year.
Blerant Ramadani from the National Alliance for Integration (left), Muhamed Elmazi from VLEN (centre) and the independent candidate Remzi Mamuti during the debate about North Macedonia’s municipality of Saraj. Photo: BIRN.
In the mayoral debates, however, the focus was mainly local. In the small municipality of Saraj, near the capital, Skopje, Blerant Ramadani, the mayoral candidate from the DUI-led National Alliance for Integration, said his programme would focus on development of the local economy in order to increase jobs for young people, as well as on investments in educational infrastructure.
“Saraj is the place for some of the most successful businesses at national level,” Ramadani declared.
Muhamet Elmazi, his rival from VLEN, highlighted the water supply as one of the most pressing issues for local residents. “We are a source of the drinking water that supplies Skopje, while our areas have problems with the drinking water supply,” Elmazi said.
In Gostivar, incumbent mayor Valbon Limani promised to address the wastewater flowing into the Vardar river through a water filtration project.
“We are working on minimising of the impact of wastewater into the Vardar, and after that we will work in tandem on the installation of wastewater pipes in two specific locations,” Limani, who is running for another mandate with the National Alliance for Integration, said.
However, Visar Ademi, his rival from VLEN, criticised Limani’s work on the sewage system, saying “workers are underpaid while the director of the waste company, which operates with debts, gets bonuses”, and promised to address such concerns if he gets elected as mayor.
The DebatPernime mayoral debates were being aired simultaneously in Albanian by North Macedonia’s public broadcaster, MRT2, and by Kosovo’s public broadcaster, RTK. They were produced by BIRN’s offices in Kosovo and North Macedonia.
In addition to Tetovo, Saraj and Gostivar, debates have been held with the mayoral candidates for the municipalities of Debar, Struga, Butel and Likovo.
In the Albanian-dominated Skopje municipality of Cair, one of VLEN’s leaders, Vice Prime Minister Izet Mexhiti, will face the DUI’s vice-president, former foreign minister Bujar Osmani.
Both are old rivals and, before Mexhiti defected from the DUI, both were seen as possible successors to the DUI’s longstanding leader, Ali Ahmeti. Neither Mexhiti nor Osmani agreed to face each other in a debate.
The format of the series saw teams of journalists making field visits to municipalities, to see if various projects promised by their mayors had actually materialised. There was also real-time fact-checking during the debates.
Merita Gashi, editor-in-chief of MRT2, said North Macedonia’s broadcaster had joined forces with RTK and BIRN “to increase the quality of [pre-election] debates … Cooperation is a breath [of fresh air] for our fragile democracy,” Gashi said.
Hysen Hundozi, acting general director of RTK, said the debates “increase the role of the media as a source of accurate and impartial information in the election period”.
Noting that people in Albanian-inhabited areas of North Macedonia watch RTK, he said that the broadcasting partnership “responds to the public’s need for quality information, by contributing to the increase of transparency, strengthening public debate and developing a healthier democratic culture in the region”.
