Populist Authoritarianism and Corruption: The Case of the Republic of Macedonia

Resumen

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s, the countries of the Western Balkans embarked upon the path of democratization, political pluralism, the free market, and the expansion of civil society, putting an end to Communist apparatchiks, dictatorship of the proletariat, worship of Communist Party leaders, unlimited state power, socialist populism, anathematizing internal and external enemies, censorship of the media and the red bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, corruption - a term normally reserved for capitalist countries, despite the widespread practice of bribery in socialist states – has also made its appearance in these new democracies. The scant episodes of corruption "discovered" in the communist era focused criticism on the small apparatchiks of the Party or on the business world, seen as the "enemy" of the working class and socialism. At the beginning of the transition it was naively thought that all the "demons" of the communist system would disappear, but it has been seen that this would not be so.

Today, in the Balkans, the spirit of populism and the manipulation of crowds reigns, and the demagogy of politicians is enriched by authoritarianism and sophisticated systems of corruption. The case of Macedonia is very significant in this regard. VMRO-DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski, who won the parliamentary elections in 2006 and still maintains power, began his mandate by promoting a war against corruption, for which he even hired former Romanian prosecutor Monika Macovei to serve as an anti-corruption advisor of his government. But the discovery by the opposition of a large network

of wiretaps organized by the Ministry of the Interior have revealed the extent of corruption of the current Gruevski government.

The leaders of communist Yugoslavia were barely apprentices in comparison to the magnitude of the corruption of the current power elite. Some projects such as Skopje 2014, the roads built by Chinese companies, or the Actor case have revealed the existence of significant influence trafficking for the benefit of politicians and the companies that finance the party in the power. Faced with challenges of this magnitude, the Macedonian justice system has not been able to undertake a single legal procedure for corruption against the members of the Government. For that reason, the international community has encouraged the creation of a Special Prosecutor's Office with the mandate to initiate a judicial proceeding on the corruption of the political elite, as it was evidenced by wiretapping records.

The pathologies of political power, such as authoritarian populism, go hand in hand with corruption. How to fight against it? First, through institutional and non-institutional control over power, that is, through the application of a system of checks and balances. On a second level, by the meticulous and expert analysis of the sources of corruption. And, at a third level, for regional and international cooperation to change the point of view of the fight against corruption and the creation of a methodology to fight against it.