Macedonia Presidency Candidates Urged to Join TV Debate

The National Democratic Institute, NDI, said that it wanted to change the current practice in Macedonia where candidates usually do not take part in proper televised debates with each other ahead of polls.

“We have been talking to the four candidates and the parties they represent. At the moment the response is a positive one. I am hoping that we will have all four candidates,” Chris Henshaw, NDI's resident senior director in Macedonia, told Radio Free Europe.

After last year’s local elections, the OSCE/ODIHR monitoring mission said that media coverage in the country was partisan and that there were no independent debates even though the NDI tried to organize them.

Henshaw said however that the NDI was determined to persevere.

“It is an excellent opportunity [for the politicians] in these elections to say, yes, we value independent media, we value broadcasting where political opponents are able to debate in a constructive way and yes, we will all be part of it,” he said.

The practice of no-shows at TV debates with the opposition began with current Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski when his conservative VMRO DPMNE came to power in 2006.

The opposition has called for face-to-face debates over the years, but Gruevski and his party have usually responded that there was no real need for a TV debate because the VMRO DPMNE party presented its achievements to the people every day.

During the 2009 presidential elections, the VMRO DPMNE presidential candidate, Gjorge Ivanov, who is now running for a second term in office, initially agreed to televised discussions with other presidential hopefuls but cancelled subsequent debates as election day was approaching.

There were also no TV...