When we talk about resignations and service, we imply a normal democratic state. Is North Macedonia such a state?
By Xhelal Neziri
Every ambitious politician should keep in mind that when they take on a position, they also take on responsibility. That responsibility is to serve the country, their people, because those around them have deemed that they can be a good servant of the citizens. If they fail to serve properly, they leave, resigning without a second thought. They may have had good intentions, they may not even be at fault, but when a tragedy like the one in Kočani occurs, where 59 people lost their lives and over 150 were injured, the resignation of the minister or ministers appointed to serve is the first act that should follow.
When we talk about resignations and service, we imply a normal democratic state. Is North Macedonia such a state?
In 2018, in Laskarci, Skopje, 13 citizens died in a bus accident. In 2021, a bus burned down on the roads of Bulgaria with 45 passengers while traveling from Turkey. That same year in Tetovo, 14 people were burned alive while being treated for coronavirus in the modular hospital in Tetovo. These days in Kočani, 59 young people died in a nightclub with no safety standards, organizing a concert without any safety protocol. Which minister resigned after these tragedies? In the tragedies of 2018 and 2021, the ministers from the SDSM-DUI coalition saved themselves with media tricks. Now, as opposition parties, they cannot ask the ministers of VMRO-DPMNE to resign for this tragedy. In a few years, another government will not “sacrifice” any minister in the next tragedy because it has already become a practice. Practice in democracy is sometimes stronger than the law and the constitution. A practice that repeats tragedies, where everyone is guilty except the true culprits.
How does the normal world function? Here are 10 examples of how governments have reacted:
- This year in Serbia, Prime Minister Milos Vučević resigned. The reason – the collapse of a roof at the railway station in Novi Sad, where 15 people died.
- Chung Hong-won from South Korea resigned as Prime Minister in 2014 after the Sewol ferry tragedy, where over 300 people died.
- The director of the U.S. Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned in 2024 after an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. In her testimony before Congress, Cheatle called the event “the greatest operational failure” of the agency in decades.
- In 2023 in Spain, after fatal floods in Valencia, King Felipe VI faced the anger of residents who demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, accusing him of poor crisis management.
- Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned on February 28, 2023, after a fatal collision between two trains in Larissa, Greece, that caused the death of 57 people.
- Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta resigned along with several members of his cabinet after a fire in the “Colectiv” nightclub in Bucharest on October 30, 2015, which claimed 64 lives and injured hundreds.
- Japanese Transport Minister Toshihiro Nikai resigned in 2005 after a train derailment in Amagasaki, which killed over 100 people.
- Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt resigned in 2015 after shootings in Copenhagen.
- Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato resigned in 1964 after the Niigata earthquake, taking moral responsibility.
- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned in 2008 after criticism for handling the Second Lebanon War.
Nine months after taking power, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski seeks accountability everywhere, but not in his government cabinet. Resignations as a moral act are given to preserve citizens’ trust in institutions, in this case, in the government. If this does not happen, citizens’ trust in the executive power will be equal to that in the judiciary – below 2%. Meanwhile, ministers will have absolute immunity built on a series of tragedies.
