wh y w e l o s t
76
in 23 constituencies, approximately 160,000 voters recast their ballots on 5 December.
Combined with the results of the previous round, Trajkovski won a total of 582,208 votes
against 513,614 for Petkovski. PDSH members played a pivotal role in the presidential
elections by casting their votes for the VMRO candidate. The inauguration ceremony on
15 December was boycotted by Petkovski and some other SDSM members. Trajkovski
thus succeeded Gligorov, the former leading member of both the old Yugoslav Commu-
nist elite and the SDSM.
At this time, apart from the enormous financial gap in the budget, the Macedonian economy
was doing well, and another big market was opened with the stabilization of Kosovo. In the
first year after the NATO intervention, around 80% of the products which were imported
to Kosovo were made in Macedonia. This trend was followed by a visit by Prime Minister
Georgievski to Kosovo that was made, as he claimed, for the sake of strengthening the Mace-
donian economy. His visit was attacked by the media and his political opponents, but it was
evident that it was a brave step that opened Kosovo for Macedonian firms.
After normalization of the situation in Kosovo, the year 2000 brought the biggest financial
growth since independence in 1991. Macedonia was in the company of the Eastern Euro-
pean countries which had the most promising economic results. This was also felt among
many Macedonian firms regardless of sector.
Generally, there was no substantial preference for firms close to the government, because
it followed a policy of trying to finish the job as soon as possible. This caused some dissat-
isfaction among managers of private companies close to the VMRO-DPMNE, and to the
ones which were formed by the party. These party firms were supposed to provide constant
financing of the party, regardless of whether the government was in power or in opposition.
The forming of these party companies was a major mistake and became fodder for stories
about corruption and criminal privatization of the last 10% of state companies.
At a time when the region was still unstable, Macedonia received major foreign invest-
ments with the sale of Macedonian Telecom and the OTKA oil refinery in Skopje. Both
of these privatizations were successful, especially the one involving Macedonian Telecom,
which was sold just before the conflict in Macedonia and the recession in the telecom-
munication business. This sale brought more than € 370 million in cash and the same
amount in investment. A big part of this was supposed to be invested in projects of public
interest, such as hospitals, water supply systems, roads, sewage, veterinary stations, etc.
It was a good decision to spend money on public investments, since there were no other
foreign investors because of the general perception of Macedonia as an unstable region.
But the media and SDSM accused the government of corruption and taking bribes from
investors. Once more, the public relations management of the VMRO-led government
was unable to overcome the SDSM-linked media accusing it of corruption. It can also be
faulted for not making the sales process more transparent or informing the public of the
benefits of this sale.
Obviously, VMRO-DPMNE’s public relations failures were chronic. Under its administra-
tion, the government ruined its credibility through sensationalism, factual misrepresenta-
tion and a reliance on transparent rhetoric. It tried to present its positions in state-owned
media which had lost their credibility during the SDSM government. Government at-
tempts to create its own media were a complete failure. The party magazine
Glas
was
