INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS Elections and Conflict in Macedonia Country Analysis STEFAN DEHNERT February 2010 n Macedonia’s governance may best be described as formally democratic. This quali­fication reflects a number of problems affecting the country, including clientelism, nepotism and corruption, a weak and politicised administration, restrictions on freedom of the media and a growing fixation on»national« issues. Despite these structural problems, at least the municipal and presidential elections in 2009 were largely conducted fair and free, after the EU made the progress of accession talks contingent on a proper electoral process. n Macedonia’s political culture is perhaps best characterised as clientelist, while rural regions can be described as clan-oriented. There is a general democracy deficit and a strong antagonism between the country’s political camps(intraethnic, intereth­nic). In essence a resource conflict over state sinecures, this phenomenon, which is increasingly taking on a populist slant, is fuelling tensions in the country. Loss of political power is tantamount to loss of economic power, to such an extent that the political parties tend to resort to unfair or dishonest means to gain and hold on to power. n In the past(before and immediately after the conclusion of the 2001 peace agree­ment) social conflicts and their negative impacts were sharply ethnicised. For one thing, ethnicisation offered major opportunities for political mobilisation, especially in the context of elections; for another, such conflicts were used to divert attention from more complex social realities or the country’s lack of capacities to solve prob­lems effectively. n A strict separation of powers and a clear dividing line between private business and the party-based state would constitute one pivotal contribution to easing the con­flicts in Macedonia. Building viable economic structures, particularly in regions af­fected by smuggling and organised crime, would provide alternatives to the sources of income currently dominant there.