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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 4
(3 of 12 pages)
Janet Banda: I am Janet Banda from Malawi and I am the Law Reform Officer
with the Malawi Law Commission.
Manfred Haack: I am Manfred Haack from Germany. I am the Regional Representative of Fredrich Ebert Stiflung.
[tape cut out]
Brahim Karfa: Brahim Karfa (ph) member of the National Secretariat of the Workers Union in Morocco and also
representative of the working class in Morocco.
Chair: Honorable Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Mr. Zhvania. I had the pleasure of meeting him last
November when the OSC had a democratization seminar. On my right this is Mrs. Sekerinska from Macedonia. As you
all know the people of this country have had a very tough time lately with the war. There is a so called peace
at the moment but it is not a real peace and we all hope that you'll really be helped by all of us and that you'll
have a peaceful future for your country. Now I would ask you to take the floor.
Radmila Sekerinska: I must say that inviting politicians to speak about such broad issues is a very risky
business and challenging their discussion through various questions such as the ones that we have received with
our material is certain damage control. On the other side limiting the time to ten minutes is a very big optimism
and I must say I will do my best to stick within this time limit.
Transition is a difficult task for every country and I must say that probably during the discussion we will see
and we will hear about different experiences, problems and solutions, but generally various problems appear in
more or less every country undergoing any transition. You have to fight the inertness of the country, the population,
the media, the political structures and so on. You have to bear the consequences of the short and long term problems
that will appear also because of the transition. You have to fight all these various problems at the same time
and you cannot allow yourself to chose only one battle or to chose only one area and concentrate on it only.
Macedonia as a country was more or less similar to many others but had also additional problems due to various
reasons. We have as a country achieved a certain standard of living in security that was additionally making this
inertness of the population even higher. People were used to having a secure kind of living. They were used to
having maybe not a very high standard but a standard that they had become used to. So it was very difficult to
explain to these people that changes were needed because this process can go on forever. We had to go through an
economic transition which meant that the formally closed economy will have to open it's market, will have to open
it's factories and the whole economy. This was accompanied by a need for additional political change and enormous
social pressures. We were trying to accomplish at the same time to create an independent state by emerging from
the former Yugoslavia, fortunately without any war conflict. We were aiming at developing a democratic state where
not only basic human rights would be respected but also interactive (ph) stability will be preserved through the
same period. More or less 30% of the population belongs to a different kind of minority group, it will make you
see that the whole situation became a bit more complicated.
We were trying to encourage economic changes by managing a certain kind of economic recuperation. We were trying
to survive economic transition while keeping the basic social safety nets functioning. Fortunately as I can see
now after eight years, I think that generally all this was done in a specifically difficult environment. We have
had numerous, to be mild problematic, with some of our neighbors. We have endured problems on the main transport
route which additionally made the economic transition even harder. We have had war conflicts going on just kilometers
away from the country. So these were the problems we were suffering from before the problems that we had to face.
Of course some politicians in my country will argue this but I think that most of the problems and most of the
important part of this work is already behind us. I must say that we are still waiting for some additional reforms
that are needed in our country but generally I think that the changes which have taken place in the past are already
irreversible. They have happened and we are now accustomed to them. I think that generally even other political
parties and other political orientation can maybe change the pace, slow or improve the speed of these reforms but
they cannot change the direction and the orientation of the country.
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