Page 26 - Ekonomija i Biznis_noemvri 2016.indd

ECONOMY
Goran Petrevski
The author is Associate Professor at
the Faculty of Economics, “Ss. Cyril and
Methodius”University
LEFT, RIGHT,
CENTRAL...
Ido not know to what extent the
readers are familiar with the
Yugoslav rock-scene, however
to the ones who know it, I rec-
ommend them to search for the
song “Unusual day” by the group Haus-
tor, whose refrain says: “Oh, oh, oh,
who would understand this: left, right,
central! In the 80’s of the 20th century,
when I was a child, I naively thought
that the refrain refers to riding a bi-
cycle because this is exactly how the
song begins, however today I admire to
the political association of the text. I
don’t know why these days this refrain
constantly goes through my head, al-
though actually I guess the reason: the
approaching of the upcoming elections
as the most important event that will
mark this year which is slowly going.”
Of course, Economy and Business
is not a political magazine, so here we
will not speak about the daily political
intrigues. However, considering that
this is a magazine for the economy and
the business, and politics strongly af-
fects both, this article is dedicated to
the economic profile, i.e. the economic
ideology of both leading political par-
ties in Macedonia, VMRO-DPMNE (as
the party which labels itself as a Demo-
christian party, which means conser-
vative, right-wing party) and SDSM (as
a party which leans towards the social-
democratic ideology and which we per-
ceive as left-wing). For this purpose, to
a great extent we rely on a publication
of a group of authors from the Center
26 November 2016
for Economic Analyses, which studies
the economic programs of these two
political parties and compares them
through the prism of their declared
economic-political ideology.
In VMRO-DPMNE’S Program for the
period 2011 – 2015, titled “Manifest for
reforms and development”, the party’s
focus is directed towards several key ar-
eas such as: manufacturing, import and
investments (especially foreign invest-
ments); improvement of the standard
of living; protection of the vulnerable
categories of citizens; development of
agribusiness, more quality education
and health care; improvement of the
institutions (judiciary, public adminis-
tration, etc.). As one can notice, some
of these goals, such as manufacturing
or the institutions, are not left-wing
or right-wing, although traditionally
it is precisely the conservative parties
that base the election campaigns on
issues related to the investments, the
markets, the legal state, etc. However,
on the other hand, one can easily no-
tice that the Program of VMRO-DPMNE
rests on several key points which not
only have nothing in common with the
political right-wing, but also are excep-
tionally leftist according to their na-
ture. Such is the case with the empha-
sis on the standard of living (increasing
of salaries and pensions, cheap educa-
tion and health, etc.), protection of the
poor layers (social assistance) and agri-
business (subsidies).
The ideological confusion in VMRO-