„A sensitive process" - those are the words the ruling VMRO-DPMNE uses to describe the talks on reshuffling the Government, which actually means everyone is on edge, nobody wants to say what they're getting, and even less what they're losing. Today and tomorrow the party sits down with its coalition partners ZNAM and Vredi to redistribute the ministerial chairs.

The reshuffle is no surprise - Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced it months ago, as something due at the midpoint of the term. The talks are being held right after the party marked the 36th anniversary of its founding in Strumica, which is always a good occasion for the leader to remind everyone who's the boss in the house before the carving-up begins.

For now, there are no specifics. The Government says the process is „sensitive" and in an early stage, so they have nothing to announce - a sentence that, translated into plain language, means „we're still haggling." Which ministries will change hands, which names are coming in and which are going out - all of it stays behind closed doors, while citizens will find out only once the deal is sealed.

The question rarely asked in reshuffles like this is the most important one: does the reshuffle bring better people to better positions, or just a new balance of interests among the coalition partners? Swapping ministers is easily sold as a „refresh," but if the logic is party arithmetic rather than competence, then citizens get nothing but new faces on the old problems.