Lobbying for changes – Macedonia Civil Sector Experience

Learning political and business games, unwritten rule for success

The Union Of Macedonian Women Organizations (UMWO) starts its animation in public, catching the influential state, political, non-party, civic, business, media and other factors’ attention, to realize another initiative prepared in advance, this time adopting a quote of 40% for both sexes on the candidates’ lists for the forthcoming local elections. Women, they say in UMWO, are 51% of the population and the electorate of the country, but only 18.3% are represented in the Parliament, 8.4% are advisors in the municipality councils, and there are only 3 women mayors in Macedonia. In the already prepared material of the UMWO their so far work in the field of women’s political strengthening, has been emphasized, along with the acquired experiences on which the need for a clear and concrete legal frame for quotes is based, on the basis of which the Government and the Parliament will be proposed a legal solution that will enable Macedonian women to reach the level of the most democratic European countries. The initiative will call upon references from the Committee of Ministries to member countries of the Council of Europe, for equal participation of women and men in the political and public decision-making and the legal practice and experiences from the countries in the region, such as Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

UMWO will ask for support by the Ministry of Justice, where the Law on local elections is under way, it will ask for support by the Parliament, women parliamentarians, Department for equality of sexes in the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the leaders of the political parties, women forums in the political parties and the Macedonian women lobby, as well as by the civic organizations in the country.

“The preparation of amendments in the Law on local elections is under way and therefore it is better to act on time"”- says Svetlana Cvetkovska, coordinator of the program for political strengthening in UMWO, and she also says that behind this initiative there is a work of political strengthening of women, parliamentarian elections in 2002 when together with the Macedonian women lobby they obtained 30% women on the candidates’ lists. In her opinion, the climate for lobbying in Macedonia is favorable, they lobby most often via women in the political parties’ forums, and the latter at their leader. “Basically they all accept cooperation”, emphasizes Cvetkovska, “there is no territorial difference from one to another part of the country, but the financial support for the campaign 51% of women in the parliament, which has been lasting since 1998 is mainly foreign. Local authorities in the country provide a space for our activities and funds arrive from Norway, Austria, as well as through the Stability Pact program”.

This is an illustrative beginning of one of the many initiatives in the country that strives to be fully realized and get the necessary support in the society. In order to be successful, it is necessary for an apparently invisible lobbying machinery to move, pressure by the civic organizations in cooperation with the great number of actors. In Macedonia civic organizations in almost all spheres more or less (either continuously or less organized and incidentally) work on implementing their aims, seeking the necessary support from various powerful social factors, using their private relations, their so far results, calling upon the guaranteed constitutional rights. Each according to his/her possibilities, strengths, knowledge and experience, creating a picture for themselves as more visible and persistent actors in moving certain changes that not only refer to the legal regulations. A few of them talk about the (non) achieved level of influence while meeting the objectives in the key circles of power in the society, but also the persistence and building strategies upon their own and other experiences.

The ecologists’ movement in Macedonia relates its visibility in the past and nowadays to achieving certain results based on lobbying certain social actors. Satisfied with the so far realized, the president of MEM (Macedonian Ecologists’ Movement), Toni Jovanovski, says: “Considering that a basis for solving relevant issues from the field of environmental protection is passing quality and practical laws, MEM and its members have been particularly engaged in looking for a way and lobbying for their passing. The first Law on environment and nature, the so-called Eco-constitution, was passed at the end of 1996, after big pressure from the ecologists. MEM initiates, it wanted this Law to be passed and at the meeting itself on 17 December 1996 we organized demonstrations to support its passing. Our experiences say that lobbying is a process where enough charge and critical mass for success should be created. In that sense, all possible methods and ways were used, through the media, politicians, prominent intellectuals, ministries and local self-governments to pass new laws. Many prominent politicians, such as Kiro Gligorov, Boris Trajkovski, the ministries Popovski, Dodovski etc. were our members of honor and they personally contributed to passing certain laws and sub-legal acts”.

Asked about who is more receptive for lobbying, politicians or the business sector, Jovanovski says “politicians”, who want to win over citizens showing interest in cooperation. “Politicians are especially interested in cooperation before elections. The business sector does not show any bigger interest in cooperation and common lobbying for realization of certain projects because of the existing laws that are not put into practice and as a result of the fact that it has no privileges with the fiscal laws.”

Some of the characteristic experiences of the civil organization OHO, according to its president Pece Talevski, are enough illustrative by themselves. Talking about the cooperation with the business sector, he emphasizes the starting 1998, when the project for eco-education “We do not have a spare planet” was realized supported by domestic companies – the joint stock company Evropa, Cementarnica Usje, Makpetrol etc.

“It was quite simple, we had a quality project, well positioned in the public and towards the target groups (pupils and teachers, a total number of users 190.000) and the companies easily recognized their interest to support the project. But the problem occurred the following year when the minister of education at that time did not allow the project to be financed by companies, therefore we were forced to look for support from foundations. During the parliamentarian elections in 2002, the biggest donor of the project “Electoral fair play” was the Dnevnik, that financed printing and distribution of the manual “How to destroy your own country most easily“, in circulation of 90.000 copies. Cooperating with institutions, as a positive one, OHO mentions the relation with the Department for education development and it considers it to be their partner. “The cooperation has always been satisfactory, as well as with the Environment Fund 2-3 years ago. We have had quite stable relations with the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning since the very beginning until today. We have sent exactly 47 letters, requirements etc. and of course, we have not received anything yet. We have a meeting or two with each minister, they are delighted by the results and the quality materials and all the meetings end with the words that as soon as they have finished their program or strategy, they will call us. So, this is the sixth year we have been waiting for them to call us”. As far as the experiences with the project for respecting author’s rights is concerned, Talevski says the following: “We have had excellent cooperation with the Utrinski Vesnik and TV A1 in terms of public education for author’s rights and as part of the project’s activities there was an expert team that through a series of workshops and forums have prepared references for their realization. We have realized a few meetings with representatives from the Ministry of Culture, but none of them took part in the expert team. In the end we submitted the references. None of the references contained instructions for using a dredge in front of cameras as a method of promoting protection of author’s rights in Macedonia”.

Polio plus – post polio support group, considers the change of positive legal regulations in direction to providing protection and benefits for handicapped people to be the main determination of operating within the organization, but as Zvonko Shavreski, its first man, says, the sector it operates in is not favorable for sustainable development, that is for overcoming the treatment from a struggle to humanitarian basis, on a level of a fight for human rights.

While lobbying for various kinds of support, we have to pay attention to “human motives” that can be extremely dishonest and enter manipulative jaws, so that we can be used only for taking pictures. So far we have learned from our own and other people’s mistakes, from the non-realized promises. For instance, we required the 16th question – the citizen’s health condition to be included in the Law on census in 2001. Apparently it was all done, we had the support by all relevant instances, but in the end none of the promises was implemented in the law and now it will take time for it to be changed. The then president of the Parliament, Stojan Andov, wanted us to submit the necessary amendments within a certain period of time, promising that they will certainly be implemented. We respected the deadline, but nothing happened, we did not even get an excuse. In contrast to this, we had some positive experiences with the project “Not equal approach, equal offence“. We lobbied in various sectors, on various levels, and various structures of people supported us, small and big companies took part, some of them built access ramps themselves. The formed Inter-party parliamentary lobby group for the rights of people with special needs, made up of members from all parties in the Macedonian parliament has been strengthened with a counseling committee for a wide lobby-group from all spheres of social life. Its ultimate goal is passing a system law that will regulate the law issue on handicapped people and will be a future reference”.

Shavreski thinks that it is more easily to lobby businessmen and donators, than politicians.

“It is more easily to cooperate with them”, he says, “the most difficult are politicians, but most of them need time to react, to evaluate the moment for the right decision. We transfer our experiences with lobbying among parliamentarians to the interested ones from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Great Britain, and the preparation of a film for such kind of lobbying is in process“.