White Chairs Outside Bitola Municipality: Citizens Called Out the Promises, the Mayor Replied That Chairs Are for Sitting

At 7 in the morning, white chairs appeared in front of the Bitola Municipality building. On each one, a sheet of paper with the name of a project: a sports complex, an indoor swimming pool, "City of the Young", a water supply for Bistrica, kindergartens, new boulevards, a new school in Bukovski Livadi, a new fire station, multi-storey car parks. Above them, a banner: "Bitola is waiting…".

The guerrilla action was organised by the independent civic initiative "Poinaku" ("Differently"), ahead of the Council session that was due to discuss the development programmes for 2027-2029. "These are promises Bitola has been waiting on for 35 years," said Gabriela Ilievska of "Poinaku". "Every year the projects get pushed to the next. We haven't seen a capital project in years."

The activists say the ruling party, which holds an absolute majority at both local and national level, ignores citizens' demands, as, in their view, the refusal to call an extraordinary session on "Alta Banka" also showed. Towards the end of the action, they say, Interior Ministry officers showed up. Whether someone called them or they came on their own, they don't know.

"Alta Banka" is the city's most sensitive point. Besides the money of thousands of citizens, more than 13.3 million denars belonging to six Bitola public enterprises are stuck there. In recent days the mayor and the municipal secretary were at an international conference in Israel, so instead of him coming out to face the citizens in person, his chair in the building stayed empty.

Toni Konjanovski's answer came with irony: "While chairs are set out in a few minutes and are meant for sitting, a city is built with daily work." What the chairs lacked, he says, was the status of the projects. So he gave it: the "Pchelichka" kindergarten is already taking in children, the one by the "St. Kliment Ohridski" primary school is built, and work is going at full speed on the one in the former barracks. A building is being renovated for the new school in Bukovski Livadi, the fire station is under construction, and at the Prilep entrance to the city work is under way on underground infrastructure, roadways, pavements and bike lanes.

Then comes the vocabulary of administration. The indoor pool is "at an advanced stage", in cooperation with the Ministry of Sport. For the sports complex, the detailed urban plan has been submitted for approval to the Ministry of Transport. For the multi-storey car parks, the planning documentation is being aligned. For the Bistrica water supply, the municipality is working on solving water provision in rural areas, with support from international funds.

Advanced stage, approval, alignment - not one of those phrases comes with a date. Konjanovski is right that chairs are for sitting. That's exactly why the activists left them empty: to show how long people have been waiting on them. When will people in Bitola swim in an indoor pool - in 2027, in 2029, or on the next banner?