VMRO-DPMNE today boasted of two years of reforms in the public administration. According to the party's statement, these reforms create „professional, efficient and accountable institutions”, with better-quality services for citizens. The key step, they say, is the new Law on Senior Managers - a system in which, for the first time, the highest managerial posts will be filled through a public advert, with clear criteria and selection based on knowledge and experience.

On paper, it is hard to argue against this. A public advert instead of party appointment, criteria instead of connections, tracking results instead of a lifetime armchair - that is exactly what the Macedonian administration has been asking for over decades. The party also cites figures: over 1,000 administrative officials have already gone through training via the modernised Training Centre and gained access to an electronic learning system.

But the statement is a party one, and party statements are written to persuade, not to inform. So it is worth dwelling on the gap that always exists between the law on paper and its application in the offices. The Law on Senior Managers may provide for a public advert - but an advert is only as honest as the commission that decides. And commissions, as we know from experience, have a way of having a winner written in advance.

The real test of any administrative reform is not measured in statements or in the number of trainings completed. It is measured by one simple question: does the citizen walking into some municipality or ministry today get a faster and more honest service than two years ago? Are the managers chosen because they know, or because they are „ours”? The reform promised is good. The reform carried out we have yet to see - and not through press conferences, but through the counters where citizens collide with the state every single day.