The deviation from this will and the creation of coalitions for narrow clan interests will strip those parties of political power, which does not stem from the clientelist voter, but from the voter who seeks dignified and qualitative representation on the political stage.
By Xhelal Neziri
After the Second World War, during the rule of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, the most brutal form of totalitarian power was installed in the countries of Eastern Europe. After his death in 1953, during the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, some Eastern European countries were granted greater autonomy to create their own “communist path.” This marked the beginning of the transition from a totalitarian to a post-totalitarian regime, which lasted until the 1990s, when democracy was installed as the governing system throughout the “eastern world.”
This process of democratization in former communist countries was often accompanied by instability on the political stage due to the lack of democratic culture within the parties themselves. The transition from a totalitarian or autocratic system to democratic leadership of political entities often produced two extremes: either the creation of parties that function according to a totalitarian model, or parties with internal democracy that often appear anarchic.
Political parties are the core of social organization in every democratic state. They are the main actors that articulate and address the needs and interests of the citizens. They are central political organizations in all modern democratic systems.
Parties represent citizens through elections and mobilize social forces through their programs and political ideologies, which give energy to democracy. All political systems of democratic countries (presidential or parliamentary) place political parties at the center because of their importance in supporting and deepening the values of representative democracy. Although they may have many shortcomings, parties are key factors for the representation of democratic societies, the articulation of general interests, and the realization of collective agendas.
When we speak about political parties in North Macedonia, they make up the largest part of the public sphere. They are not only the main bearers of political processes but also a key factor in shaping public opinion. Their democratic capacity determines both the quality of democracy in the country as a whole and the level of democratic institutions in particular. Of course, the prolonged transitional process throughout the Western Balkans region has also caused deviations and even serious clashes in this field.
The lack of a clear ideology turns parties into mechanisms for the pursuit of personal or clan interests. Ideology means a political idea and an ideal. The political idea is the means to achieve the ideal, while the ideal represents the vision of political efforts. The political idea can take the form of liberal democracy, illiberal democracy, conservatism, social democracy, Christian democracy, Islamic democracy, centrism, environmentalism, extremism, fascism, etc. Thus, the political idea is the point that mobilizes voters to achieve the goal—the ideal—which is often presented as a utopian state of society where everything functions perfectly.
What is the ideology of our parties? No one can say with certainty. These very serious political organizations, which determine the level of democracy and the quality of our lives, are not clear about what they stand for. Do they want a society with a fair distribution of capital and other public goods, by supporting and strengthening workers’ unions (social democratic), or do they believe that social development is better achieved by supporting and strengthening employers, who are distinguished as the most capable of creating opportunities for all employees? Left-wing parties were created by unions to represent their interests in decision-making institutions, while right-wing parties—by businessmen for the same purposes. Centrist parties are more progressive in cultivating individual rights and pursue causes that seem forgotten by the left and right, such as the protection of nature, gender and sexual rights, the promotion of peace, strengthening international networks, etc.
The lack of ideological profiling encourages clientelist party–voter relations and demotivates those categories of voters who want to support certain political ideas that lead toward the ideal society and state. This lack shifts the public debate away from the essence of democracy and transfers it to trivial daily topics, which turn the political stage into a marketplace of transfers, where numbers matter above all.
In addition, the lack of ideology weakens the immunity of parties against the viruses of division, resulting in the constant creation of new parties that replace the old ones. Therefore, parties must analyze and clearly define what political idea unites them, for what ideal they stand (i.e., which ideology they belong to), and then determine with whom they share common values, with whom they have similar ideas and ideals, in order to form coalitions always for the realization of the ideal of the people they represent. The deviation from this will and the creation of coalitions for narrow clan interests will strip those parties of political power, which does not stem from the clientelist voter, but from the voter who seeks dignified and qualitative representation on the political stage.