Petrovska: Reform strategy to be delivered to SDSM leadership; party must change to lead opposition

Slavjanka Petrovska announced that a package of reform proposals will be handed to SDSM's leadership next week after members of the initiative platform presented conclusions aimed at reshaping the party’s role as the main opposition force.

Among the proposals emerging from the platform "Conversations for the Future 12:05" are a single nationwide electoral district and open lists. Petrovska said candidates’ knowledge, capacity and personal integrity should matter more than loyalty to party leaders when compiling electoral lists.

Petrovska: we will not wait for an invitation

She told the TV Sitel programme that the strategy will be delivered even without a formal summons and that the party president will be given time to review it. "We will not wait for an invitation, it will be delivered, but in principle we said we will not publish anything until that moment. We will leave it to the party president to review it. Whether he needs one, two days, one hour or ten minutes, that is his decision. Whether he will communicate it to the public or not, we leave that to him. But we will absolutely not allow things to remain as they are and for SDSM to continue, because of bad politics, to remain a hostage of VMRO-DPMNE and to be the shield that only buys time for Mickoski and VMRO-DPMNE to stay in power," Petrovska said.

Petrovska repeated her assessment that the current government is the "least capable" and said the platform was formed because identifying problems is not enough — action is required.

Former SDSM vice-president Igor Ivanovski, one of the platform organisers, said after a meeting that party leader Venko Filipche and the circle around him have effectively become a faction inside SDSM. Ivanovski said they will deliver a Plan for consolidation and structural changes that has been discussed within the party and urged Filipche to accept it for the party's good. " I know that Venko Filipche is having a hard time and will have an even harder time, but it must not be harder for SDSM. He has a chance, at least in the end, through his actions to help open this party that is currently captured and return it to the membership. Venko Filipche and the group, with their behaviour, have become a faction within SDSM; the membership is on our side, by a large majority," Ivanovski said.

The announcement provoked a sharp response inside SDSM: party officials accused members of the platform of being sponsored in the media by portals and journalists close to Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski. Filipche, for his part, described the initiative as an attempt at a coup to take over the party. SDSM also released a statement saying citizens can see which outlets are backing the ZNAM 2.0 platform and called Mickoski its patron.

Photo: press material from the event