Five Are Competing for the Chair That Runs Every Case Against Officials

Five prosecutors have entered the race to head the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption. The vote is on 28 October, and the term of the current head Islam Abazi expires on 8 November - he will not seek a second one.

This is the post from which every case touching holders of public office is run. The government general secretary's driver, the prime minister's security detail, the agriculture directors - every case of recent months that opened up the subject of high-level corruption started right there. Which is why this candidate list deserves more attention than a staffing procedure usually gets.

In the race: senior public prosecutor Jove Cvetanovski, who revived the investigation into abuses in the procurement of heating oil - and against whom, according to the same reports, there is an indictment for abuse of official duty; prosecutor Lidija Raicevic from the Skopje public prosecutor's office, previously also a candidate for state public prosecutor; prosecutor Iskra Hadzi-Vasileva from the organised crime office itself, prosecutor in the case of judge Gjoko Ristov; Faton Azizi from the same office; and the last to apply, Trajce Pelivanov, a former Special Prosecutor's Office prosecutor now with the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office.

Cvetanovski confirmed his candidacy, arguing from seniority. "I applied because I believe that after 25-26 years spent in the prosecution service it is logical for me to take up this position, which has many challenges. I believe I will make a great contribution", he said, without revealing details of his programme - those come in the next stage, before the Council of Public Prosecutors.

And here is the part worth holding on to. Two of the five candidates come from the ranks of the Special Prosecutor's Office - the body that was for years the central theme of Macedonian politics, and whose fate is itself a dispute that has not been closed. That is not a disqualification, but it is context each of them will have to address in their programme.

From here the procedure is mechanical: once the deadline closes, the applications are checked, committees are formed and programmes are presented. On 28 October, public prosecutors from across the country elect the new head by direct and secret ballot.

A direct, secret ballot by the prosecutors themselves is a good model on paper - it keeps the selection away from the party groups in parliament. Whether it is enough depends on something no electoral model covers: how free to vote the people who will be working under the winner tomorrow actually feel.

The question nobody will ask at the presentation, and the only one that will be measured in four years: which cases the new chief opens the term with, and how many of them survive to a verdict.