“Macedonia needs us, let’s be together! "This is the motto under which the ruling VMRO-DPMNE mobilizes new members in the last few days. The campaign especially motivates the electronic membership registration in the party.
This is the second party mobilization of Nikola Gruevski’s party in the last two years. The similar action In 2012 resulted in several tens of thousands of new citizens who received a membership card of VMRO-DPMNE, Dnevnik daily says in its analysis.
But it is not the only party that believes more members mean a better party. SDSM too had mobilization of the membership two years ago, mostly during the so-called working summer, and the Social Democrats advertise from time to time the electronic subscription through the website of the party as the easiest way the citizens can get registered in the party records.
Albanian parties also initiate membership mobilization. DUI counted its membership and introduced an electronic register of members less than a year ago, and the DPA, on the other side, has been active in the field in the past month, especially after Struga Mayor Zijadin Sela rebelled against Menduh Thaci and threatened to “steal” part of the members of the party.
Why parties constantly entering the race for members?
“It is a regular action for motivating citizens who want to join the party. From time to time we organize such campaigns and it is nothing new, this way we mobilize people and cadres, and through the public promotion of the campaign we want to show the party's openness to all interested citizens. Such campaigns are the easiest way to join for all those who have had any reservations or hesitation to join the party or had problems to do so in the local organizations. For us this is important because the previous mobilization got us new people with new ideas that proved themselves in the internal structures, and some of them were given executive positions,” explain members of the VMRO-DPMNE, talking about the last action.
The latest figures, which were published in public, show that the ruling party has more than 150,000 members, the highest number ever of party membership. But other parties also have tens of thousands of members on their account and their number is constantly increasing.
The Macedonian political history shows most changes in the number of membership with the Social Democrats. At last count two years ago, SDSM announced that it has around 75,000 members. It is 50,000 members less compared to 2005 when the party was proudly announcing that it has released more than 120,000 membership cards.
Yet, again, the current situation is twice better compared to 2008, when the Social Democrats only had 30,000 members, i.e. they lost three quarters of its membership in three years. The last leadership of SDSM Zoran Zaev and Radmila Sekerinska were particularly enforcing the electronic membership registration.
The newly established parties also boast with tens of thousands of party members, but as easy as they are getting members, these parties are losing members even easier. Such was the fate of VMRO-People's Party, United for Macedonia, Democratic Alternative party of Vasil Tupurkovski in the last decade or the party of Imer Selmani. Stevce Jakimovski ‘s party GROM at its inception a year ago also announced that starts with a figure of 20,000 members.
This practically draws us to conclusion that about 20 percent of the population may be member of a political party.
