Skopje, 27 November 2023 (MIA) — The Macedonian Writers Association's emergency session to elect its new leadership has been adjourned because of low attendance.

On Nov. 25, outgoing assembly speaker Kristina Nikolovska adjourned the session for Jan. 27 as the attending MWA members did not constitute a quorum to elect her successor and the successor of outgoing MWA president Hristo Petreski.

Blazhe Minevski and Mirche Neshovski are the only ones in the race for MWA president and Ivan Antonovski and Stefan Markovski the only candidates for assembly speaker.

Following the unsuccessful session, MWA members in a press release blamed Nikolovska and Petreski for the failure to reach a quorum and for their "attempt to completely destroy the Macedonian Writers Association established in 1947."

According to the release, Nikolovska refused to have the MWA voters' list reviewed to remove deceased members' names ahead of the vote.

She is also blamed to have prevented MWA members living abroad from voting at the emergency session without accepting or offering a solution about their expected absence affecting the quorum.

They say Nikolovska also never responded to MWA members living outside Skopje whether their travel expenses would be covered, thereby demotivating them to attend the session and vote.

Also, they add, more than half of the membership was not notified about the emergency session despite the assembly speaker's duty to inform them through any means of communication.

Lastly, they say, Nikolovska did not invite the media to the session.

"By acting out her planned script, which was supported by Hristo Petreski, and by leaving the MWA assembly hall 15 minutes before the number of attendees was determined, Nikolovska did not allow any discussion and suggestions from those present; she left the MWA premises without the slightest respect for Macedonian writers and Macedonian literature," the attendees wrote.

Despite her departure, they discussed the latest developments and agreed that Nikolovska and Petreski had squandered their legitimacy and should no longer take any financial and legal actions on behalf of the membership.

"Kristina Nikolovska and Hristo Petreski do not mean well for the MWA, Macedonian literature, Macedonian culture and the Macedonian state," the MWA members said in their release.

In response, Petreski sent his own press release on Saturday calling the members sore losers for failing to muster a quorum.

"It's easiest to blame someone else for your own failure. It has always been so — those who lose get angry," he wrote.

He also speculated that more members did not show up because of "the self-proposed candidates," whom he advised "not to waste time writing on Facebook and other social networks but mobilize candidates with more experience, respect and rating among the membership" to attend the next session.

"The quorum is only 30% of the total membership, which of the current 286 members is only 96 members," Petreski wrote.

"If they, too, cannot make a hundred members attend, then the problem is with them again, and not with anyone else," he said.

The outgoing MWA president — who is being ousted after eight of the nine members of the management board resigned and dozens of MWA members subsequently called for his and Nikolovska's ouster — also said only paying members of the MWA should have the right to vote.

"It is only 600 denars per year, which is only 50 denars per month. Those who have not paid their membership fees are not legitimate and valid members of the Association," he wrote.

Petreski also claimed that MWA's activities should not be put on hold until the Jan. 27 session because a call for new members and the MWA's annual award submissions were planned for December.

"The biggest compliment for my work," he added, "was yesterday's remark by the Bitola writer Petre Dimovski who, when he arrived in the Association yesterday, said he could not recognize it because of the new steel front door, the new laminate floor, the two new air conditioning units, the refrigerator, the meeting table, the guest sofa, the new laptop, the renovated bathroom, the clean and freshly painted rooms and so on."

"Those are the facts. It is always possible to do more, but I invested myself as much as possible in cleaning up and tidying the MWA," Petreski wrote. mr/