THEME FOR DEBATING

NGO-s and the Parliamentarian Elections?

Our Forum question this time is related to an actual topic – forthcoming elections. We ask you: Should non-governmental organizations get involved in the activities related to the elections? Should they get involved in what means informing, educating, researching, related to the elections? Or by the nature of their organization and hierarchy, it is better for them to set aside? If they get involved in the electoral activities do they risk to get involved in some political processes and if they do not get involved do they risk to be passive actors in the social processes?

This topic is very interesting for consideration and debating and it is going to be “on line” for the next two months (July and August). We hope to get some interesting opinions and discussion on this question at the Forum on the “Civic World” web-sites: www.graganskisvet@org.mk and www.civicworld@org.mk.
We look forward to your discussion and in order to initiate it, we offer some opinions on this question of some people who are active in the civic movement:

Pero Stojchevski:
In my opinion non-governmental organizations should not get involved in the electoral activities, because their basic mission is to act out of the political parties’ sphere. Their direct involvement in some electoral process is in direct opposition to the mission of the non-governmental non-party engagement. Besides, there is a danger from their abuse and manipulation. Many of the political parties could use the non-governmental organizations for their objectives and activities, especially in the pre-election campaign.

Irena Popovska:
Well, I think that non-governmental organizations should not stay aside of the electoral activities, because everything which is going on around the elections refers to them, too, as well as to all the citizens in this country. Everything which is going on before the elections is directed and addressed to the citizens and non-governmental organizations are citizens’ representatives. Even if they want to be excluded – they can not. It does not mean that if they get involved in the electoral activities they link to the political parties. They can communicate with them, have certain contacts, and it does not have to mean they are “colored” this or that and they represent certain political interests. I think it is a wrong opinion that we should not live in some “governmental”, “non-governmental”, “political” or “business” ghettoes, but we should cooperate, live interactively...

Aneta Trpkova:
Non-governmental organizations are the ones which should move closer the political and the civic. They should inform and educate the citizens in order to avoid their abuse and manipulation by some political parties. Only an educated voter can be a good voter. I think that a lot of non-governmental organizations were involved in the local electoral activities in 2000 and it had some very good results. So I hope this time, for the parliamentarian elections it is going to be like that again. 

 From the Last Month’s Debate

How much do we cooperate with the local self-government?

Last month we asked the following question: How much do we cooperate with the local self-government?
We wanted to provoke a discussion also related to an actual topic – the process of decentralization and communication between non-governmental organizations and the local self-government.
Here are some opinions on this topic:

Angelko Mihajlovski:
I do not think we cooperate enough, especially we, from the smaller places. The local self-government representatives still behave as if they were local autocrats, they refuse to cooperate with the non-governmental organizations – they probably feel endangered of them. But in my opinion, the non-governmental organizations are also to blame – they never show enough willingness and initiative to cooperate with the local power.

Erzebet Stojanovska:
They cooperate, but not enough. They are both to blame. In my opinion non-governmental organizations and the local self-government do not have prejudices for each other, but they just do not have enough initiative. They do not understand that they can only be useful to each other, that they should work together on achieving a mutual objective – for citizens’ good