wh y w e l o s t
78
and which was opposed by DA officials because of their links with Belgrade. Further-
more, six VMRO members of parliament led by Finance Minister Boris Stojmenov left
the party and formed their own parliamentary group and party, named
VMRO-Make-
donska
.
DA decided to step out of the government because of differences with VMRO on econom-
ic policy, refusal by VMRO to back DA leader Tupurkovski for president of Macedonia,
DA’s discontentment about the handling of the privatization process and irregularities in
the 1999 and 2000 elections. A new government was elected without DA, and the Liberal
Party and some DA members of parliament joined the VMRO-led coalition. In a slight
victory for VMRO, the party succeeded in keeping the majority in the government and
having all of the mayors from DA join VMRO or at least proclaim their loyalty to the
government. The ruling coalition survived this crisis with a slim majority of 64 out of 120
parliamentary seats.
In January 2001, just before the crisis started, the Macedonian government was under
the threat of being implicated in a wire-tapping scandal, with the SDSM claiming the
government tapped about a hundred public and political figures, including 25 journalists.
It claimed the illegal surveillance took place in the run-up to local elections in September
2000 and in the following three months when the government was struggling to defend its
parliamentary majority. The scandal, named the “Macedonian Watergate” by the media,
broke out on 17 January in a press conference when the SDSM leader Crvenkovski, pro-
vided 150 pages of transcripts of allegedly monitored telephone conversations. The media
also speculated that DA leader Tupurkovski had leaked the transcripts to Crvenkovski.
This scandal showed that how vulnerable and inexperienced the security structures led by
VMRO were, having intruders linked with SDSM among their employees.
By the end of 2000, the situation in southern Serbia (Preshevo, Bujanovac and Medvedje)
got worse and there were clashes with Albanian insurgents there. When the first intel-
ligence information about plans for similar actions arrived in the government, the reac-
tion was insufficient. The Albanian partner in the governmental coalition, PDSH, did not
support the Albanian insurgents which had been planning this attack on the Macedonian
state. But as developments worsened, and the so-called National Liberation Army (NLA)
gained support among Macedonian Albanians, PDSH feared for its rating among its elec-
torate and started to indirectly support the NLA; some PDSH members became com-
manders and took part in the clashes.
The situation went out of control with the occupation of the Macedonian village Tanu-
shevci, to which the government was argued to have reacted hesitantly, leaving even the
deputy director of the state security blocked by the insurgents from entering this area for
several hours. After the international community indirectly gave approval for action, the
government debated whether such action should be undertaken by the army or the minis-
try of the interior. As events worsened and the Macedonian security forces suffered more
casualties, the dialog with the international community became hostile. The Macedonian
government was losing international support. Disagreements between the prime minister
and Interior Minister Ljube Boshkovski and between the government and NATO and EU
leaders, as well as with the special envoys James Perdew and François Leotard, further
complicated the situation.
