IRI Conducts Political Party Assessment Mission

February 25, 2003

IRI's Macedonia program conducted a political party assessment mission this week in the wake of the country's September parliamentary election. Delegates included Alan Maine from the British Conservative Party, Arkansas Republican activist Hank Jones, Lee Peterson, political consultant in the UK and former IRI resident program officer in Moscow; Brian Mefford, IRI resident program officer in Ukraine, and Margarita Assenova of IRI Washington. The mission examined the needs of Macedonia's political parties and will make recommendations as to specific programmatic steps to engage the political parties as partners. At the same time, IRI will be encouraging greater transparency and openness within the parties as representative democratic institutions.

Eleven years after independence, Macedonia's major political parties have gained considerable experience competing in campaigns and elections. After nine elections, parties have had considerable opportunity to test their campaign models and fine-tune the communication tools to mobilize their voters, both during and between election periods. Nevertheless, hurdles remain before Macedonia's political parties can be considered truly democratic institutions.

The parties' organizations remain highly centralized, in function if not by statute. There is a lack of transparency and party leaders maintain power through patronage. At the same time, centralization has taken its toll on the parties. Few efforts are made to tap new ideas and dynamic and energetic new talent for the party at the local level. In addition, the armed conflict of 2001 saw a resurgence of ethnic issues' predominance in Macedonian politics.

The resulting nationalist rhetoric from the established ethnic Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties rapidly alienated voters and left the parties further out of synch with the sentiments of the mainstream Macedonian electorate.

Recommendations from the assessment mission will help IRI's Macedonia program develop projects to achieve the sometimes-contradictory goals of working in partnership with Macedonia's political parties and providing assistance in accordance with their stated needs. The program also will encourage greater openness and decentralization of party structures moving power away from party leaders and towards the grassroots.

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