17 08 2007 Skopje_ Macedonia’s parliament has been meeting in an emergency session to debate a decision by a parliamentary commission to strip former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski of his immunity.
Buckovski faces charges of alleged involvement in an arms procurement scandal dating back to the time he was defence minister in 2001.
His immunity from prosecution was lifted by a parliamentary commission on 2 August, but that decision has to be endorsed by a full session of parliament.
Since the session opened late on Thursday, deputies of the governing centre-right VMRO-DPMNE party and the opposition Social Democrats of the SDSM, which was formerly led by Buckovski, have been trading accusations in a tense atmosphere.
The SDSM deputies have charged the governing coalition headed by VMRO-DPMNE of plotting against them and against democracy by using scare tactics, a selective fight against crime and violating parliamentary procedures.
“Do you not see a system? First the less important people are being detained, then the more important, then generals, and then deputies. There is a list in VMRO- DPMNE! There is a list,” Lazar Kitanovski, a deputy from SDSM said in his speech.
VMRO-DPMNE dismissed the accusations and called on Buckovski to give up his immunity and thus spare parliament from what some compared to the political equivalent of a lynching.
The SDSM blamed the Parliament’s speaker, Ljubisa Georgievski, for being “a director of chaos, instead a director of procedure”.
Buckovski, who was prime minister from 2004 to 2006, remains a member of parliament.
A decision to lift Buckovski’s immunity would pave the way for his prosecution. (Birn, Albania Post)
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