VLEN accuses DUI of blocking the Law on Equitable Representation: where are the voting records?

The governing VLEN issued a statement accusing DUI of blocking the Law on Equitable Representation and thereby working directly against one of the founding principles of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. That is a specific accusation about a specific law - and the least interesting part of the entire statement.

The rest is classic party artillery. According to VLEN, DUI's leadership hates the majority of Albanians who sent them into opposition, their destructiveness is reaching worrying proportions, and after 22 years of governing in SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE cabinets they have become the worst possible representative of the Albanian vote. VLEN also claims that a small group around Ali Ahmeti is politically offering to help VMRO win more than 60 MPs at the next parliamentary elections, in order to escape criminal liability.

Both sides have been, or are, in power

Here is the frame worth holding onto. The two parties now arguing over who represents Albanians better both have long government terms behind them - DUI for decades, VLEN right now. Which means the Law on Equitable Representation, if it is that fundamental, has passed through the hands of both.

VLEN claims that trying to create the impression that Albanians' rights are threatened simply because DUI is not a coalition partner amounts to knowingly serving the political interests of the Macedonian right. That is a heavy formulation - a party sitting in government with VMRO-DPMNE accusing another party of working for VMRO-DPMNE.

What is left of the law?

The whole statement contains exactly one verifiable thing: whether the Law on Equitable Representation is in parliament, what stage it is at, and who voted how. That is information any citizen can look up - and it is precisely the part for which the statement offers not a single date.

Press statements are free and take a day to write. A law in parliament comes with a recorded vote, names included. Next time either side claims who is blocking what, it will be far more convincing if they produce the record.