The control and the transparency in the financing of civil organizations have to be strengthened and all doubts have to rejected and a distinction has to be made between non-government organizations that truly work for the benefit of the people and those that hide behind the NGO curtain.
This was stated by the president of the state, Gjorge Ivanov, in an interview for the Hungarian daily newspaper Magyar Hírlap when he was answering about the efforts that Macedonia and Hungary invest in the decrease of political activism by civil organizations supported by George Soros.
-A misuse of the civil sector mustn’t be allowed. As a law professor, I spent a lot of years in the civil sector, foundations, institutions, non-government organizations with an initiative to help the society to become more mature. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, this sector is now dominated by political interests and the citizen’s interests are at the bottom of the priorities of these organizations – said Ivanov.
The Macedonian president said that “apart from a political, the NGO’s have an ethnic color since some of the foreign foundations insist on supporting them on an ethnic basis.”
-I condemn all efforts for politicizing the civil sector and the effort to make them biased. It is unacceptable that foreign assets to flow into the non-government sector for the development of political goals, initiation of activities that involve direct foreign involvement into the internal affairs of a sovereign country – said Ivanov.
According to him, the civil sector has to contribute to the progress and positive changes that will be of benefit to the country.
-Instead of that, we have to deal with organizations that in various ways and without any self-criticism act destructively and in contrary to the national and civil interests – concludes Ivanov.
In the interview, he also talks about current political happenings in the country and says that the parties have to seek the solution with responsible behavior and in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia. According to Ivanov, a possible solution for solving the crisis are the new early parliamentary elections at which the citizens will cast their vote and will voice out their opinion about the subjects that were imposed during the post-election period.
In the interview, he also stresses that SDSM’s leader, Zoran Zaev, instead of informing him in a period of 10 10, he has done that after 7 days that he has secured a majority in the Parliament with the support of all parties by ethnic Albanians. He repeated that he won’t give the mandate if the Albanian platform is not rejected with which, as he said, the unitarity, sovereignty and the independence of Macedonia are endangered.
The president stressed that the other part of the demands by the parties from the Albanian political block are contrary to the Constitution while other demands depend on the field statistics, for which it is necessary a census be made. He mentioned that the main reason for deepening of the crisis is the Tirana Platform and he also stressed that a week after it was published what followed was a radical rhetoric and statements by high-ranking state officials from Albania and Kosovo because of which he called upon the international community to condemn the platform.
Ivanov is visiting Hungary during which he will have meetings with the country’s top officials.
