Today the “Colourful Revolution” are demonstrating against the “selling” of workers on minimum wages, and hurled paint at the Employment Agency (ESA) and the Ministry of Economy, and chanted “The Youth are Gone, Party Members are In,” and “Party Membership, and Through the Door you Go!”.
Before the protesters, spoke several students and a professor from the Faculty of Economics, Biljana Sekulovska-Gaber, who through personal experiences told her story of discontent over government policies.
Sekulovska-Gaber said that in this country nobody listens to the youth who are the future of the country, nor do they listen to the professors.
“I’m here every day and I have been protesting for seven years now. The first time I went out to protest was when they announced the “Skopje 2014” project. Seven years ago no one knew how far this madness would go. All this will end in the same place, where it started, the square with a huge protest by the “Colourful Revolution”, said Sekulovska-Gaber.
Тргна протестниот марш на #ШаренаРеволуција #протестирам pic.twitter.com/hcsk6t0c2b
— META.mk (@meta_agency) May 13, 2016
Viktor Mitrevski, who studies abroad said he did not want to look like his closest friends here, who had the best grades of their whole generation and end up abroad and work for a miserable salary. However, he said that there are those who are from Macedonia, and still managed to get into the world’s famous corporations.
“If we can succeed outside and lead successful companies, then we can do it here, and successfully lead this state”, said Mitrevski.
Radio presenter Peter Antevski said he is protesting because he does not want to get party membership just so he could get employment, he wants to be able to live a life without having to consider going abroad because life is supposedly better there.
Ја обоија Агенција за вработување #протестирам pic.twitter.com/1rprJtcRMm
— META.mk (@meta_agency) May 13, 2016
Last to address the crowd was activist Dejan Ljutkov , who said that the ‘Employment Agency’ is a euphemism for ‘Agency for deletion. He referred to the government’s measures to reduce employment and the way the Agency illegally deletes unemployment. He touched on foreign investments, and minimum wages provided by foreign investors because “the government promotes us, the people as cheap labour.”
“The government advertises us abroad, taking into account their statements for foreign offices and agents, we should be asking who in this story is tied to foreign services”, asked Ljutkov.
In his speech he also called for social justice. Tonight’s protests came to an end, and organizers urged more citizens to come out tomorrow before the SPO to express their anger.
Tonight, altogether there were 12 other protest across the country, and protests for the first time in come cities such as, Sveti Nikole, Krusevo and Vinica.
