The Economist UK - 21.03.2020

34 Europe The EconomistMarch 21st 2020

2

A

lexander the greatis off to the

dump. If the authorities in Skopje,

the capital of North Macedonia, have

their way, statues and monuments glori-

fying him, his father Philip II and other

ancient, mythical and more modern

Macedonians around the city will soon

be yanked off their pedestals and dis-

patched to a distant park on a reclaimed

rubbish tip.

Skopje was refurbished by the previ-

ous city authorities, who lost power in

2017.One aim of their €685m ($765m)

renovation project was to instil pride in

an antique Macedonian past centring on

Alexander, the general who created an

empire stretching as far east as Pakistan

by the age of 30. But Greeks regard Alex-

ander as wholly theirs, and reckon that

Skopje’s claim to him is absurd. The

territory now occupied by North Mac-

edonia was not, they argue, even part of

the ancient kingdom of Macedonia (the

Romans added it to their province of that

name later on.) By claiming him, North

Macedonia poisoned relations with

Greece, the regional economic hegemon.

A new coalition government finally

managed to end the 27-year-old conflict

with Greece in 2018 by agreeing to change

the country’s name from Macedonia

(which is the name of a Greek region) to

North Macedonia.

The Social Democrats who now run

Skopje have talked of removing a giant

Alexander statue, and others of him and

other heroes, though done little. Cost is

one reason, says Nikola Naumoski, the

mayor’s chief of staff, but politics is a

bigger one. Every statue is “like a land-

mine”, he says. If they are removed,

protests will erupt. For that reason, the

government pressed the city authorities

to hold off on purging the plinths.

However, in October France vetoed

the opening ofeuaccession talks with

North Macedonia, infuriating its govern-

ment. An election was called shortly

afterwards, but is now up in the air,

thanks to the coronavirus. If the nation-

alists return to power, they will stop the

statues from being removed. But if the

incumbent Social Democrats win, says

Mr Naumoski, Alexander will be taking a

long walk in the park.

Deplinthing Alexander

North Macedonia

SKOPJE

The politics of tearing down statues of a man who conquered the ancient world

A junkyard-bound general?

ered in parks or shopping in crowded street

markets, ignoring advice to stay in. The

next day, Mr Macron addressed the nation

again, deploring the fact that people were

behaving “as if, basically, life had not

changed”. He suspended the second-round

vote, due on March 22nd, shut France

down, and declared, “We are at war.”

Why did Mr Macron not delay the elec-

tions earlier? His former health minister

now says she knew it was a “masquerade”

to go ahead. It turns out that postponement

was still on the table as late as March 12th.

Delaying a democratic vote, however, was a

decision that required cross-party consen-

sus, at least politically. There was already a

climate of suspicion at the government’s

recent use of a decree to pass its pension re-

form. Gérard Larcher, president of the Sen-

ate, opposed a postponement. Christian Ja-

cob, the Republican leader (who has since

contracted covid-19), had said publicly that

a delay would constitute a coup d’état.

Moreover, the scientific council advising

the president suggested that voting would

not pose a health hazard if sanitary rules

were followed.

As France deals with an acceleration of

cases, such questions will become second-

order. A military hospital is being mobil-

ised in Alsace, one of the worst-affected re-

gions. Fully 66% of the French told a poll

that they found Mr Macron’s first address,

which mixed solemnity and science with

much-needed warmth, convincing. An as-

tonishing 35m people, more than half the

entire population, watched his second.

And, despite disapproving of the decision

to hold a first-round vote, 57% of the

French think he and his government are

managing the crisis well—his highest ap-

proval rating for a very long time. 7

T

he worldmight be heading into its

biggest crisis since the second world

war, Russians may be sweeping the shelves

of supermarkets clean, but Vladimir Putin

knows his priorities. On March 17th he de-

creed that his country must hold an “all-

people vote” on a constitutional change de-

signed to keep himself in power indefinite-

ly. “Against the background of the

pandemic, Putin’s decision seems crimi-

nal,” tweeted Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most

prominent opposition figure.

Mr Putin later said the vote could be

postponed if need be, but for now it is to be

held on April 22nd—the birthday of Vladi-

mir Lenin. It is as meaningless as were

elections in the Soviet Union The amend-

ments that give the president vast powers

and reset the clock on his term limits have

already been signed into law by Mr Putin

and approved by a pliant Constitutional

Court. Ekaterina Schulmann, a political

scientist, said on Facebook about the court

that “rarely has the spirit of slavery and in-

tellectual cowardice revealed itself so fully

in a written text.”

The spectacle of a “people’s approval” is

likely to stretch over several days, requires

no minimum turnout or independent ver-

ification and will include home and elec-

tronic voting. “Putin was too scared to hold

a proper referendum so he came up with

this fake procedure,” says Mr Navalny. “The

Kremlin is desperate to draw us into it,

count us up and then declare victory,” he

adds. He has refused to participate in it. On

March 15th a group of 350 lawyers, intellec-

tuals and journalists signed an open letter

warning of a constitutional coup that

threatens to plunge the country into a na-

tional conflict. Three days later the number

of signatures had swelled to 30,000.

Even Mr Putin’s loyalists feel deceived.

“Lying to foreigners is one thing. Lying to

his own people is quite another,” one for-

mer military officer says. The growing fear

of a covid-19 outbreak in Russia, where the

number of cases has been suspiciously low,

and Mr Putin’s insistence on sticking with

the vote, despite his government’s decision

to close borders and schools, could exacer-

bate that anger. Many people remember the

Kremlin lying about the scale of the Cher-

nobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Mr Putin’s

amended constitution proclaims today’s

Russia to be the heir to the Soviet Union,

whose falsehood-filled propaganda rag

was called, simply: “Truth”. 7

A backlash to Vladimir Putin’s

power-grab begins

Russia

The new Soviet

Union