The leaders of the Alliance for Albanians and Alternative parties - Zijadin Sela and Afrim Gashi, together with the Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, came out with optimistic announcements that they are on the verge of finding a solution for the citizenship law, which should mean unlocking the fourth and from the fifth economic package that are in parliamentary procedure. Apparently this is good news for both. I have no doubt that it is true what Sela and Gashi forget that many of our fellow citizens, even though they have lived here for decades, still do not have citizenship - and it is indisputable that this issue needs to be resolved. But to link it to the laws on financial assistance to citizens and the economy in an economic crisis, and to block them with fabricated 7.000 amendments, is a classic blackmail and is very far from parliamentary democracy.

Let me ask Sela and Gashi, do they not know people who need more than financial help, do they not know that there are such companies that did not pay salaries, and in which there are Macedonians and Albanians, Serbs? To whom does this blackmail suit? Will those who receive citizenship be happier if they do not have bread to eat? Where did all the criteria of normal party and parliamentary behavior and thinking get lost?

If the MPs and the parties "work" with blackmail, then what lesson do these elected officials, who eat bread from the people's money, send to the young generations? That everything can be obtained through blackmail, that nothing is sacred, that there is a measuring cup for everything? On top of that, both VMRO-DPMNE and the Left had submitted amendments to the Law on Citizenship, so the Alliance-Alternative told them to withdraw because they will do it if the law on citizenship is passed!

Do they all think about what they are playing with? So far, 17.000 people have not received their February salary. Do those representatives of the people know what it means not to be paid? Or they are happy, one of their salaries is like 4-5 for these "ordinary" people with a minimum wage. Do they know that 22.000 citizens are waiting for 6.000 denars of help from the state because when it was paid to others from the vulnerable category, these fellow citizens had blocked or outdated accounts, so an amendment to the law allowed them an additional deadline to open an account, and that amendment should to vote for MPs? Do those from the Alliance-Alternative know that 6.000 textile workers have been sent on forced leave, and it is not certain that they will return to work (the information is from a week ago, maybe now it is even worse)?

I know that it is inconceivable to live in the country for decades without citizenship. I remember how citizenship was obtained after the break-up of Yugoslavia - who could apply and who had to pay how much (some even 500 marks at the time). As a young journalist, I reported from those counters. There were people who, even after 40 years of living in Macedonia, did not have citizenship, because neither they nor their parents were born here. If there are still those who found themselves in the country and remained living after the break-up of Yugoslavia, a solution should be found for them as well. But the Alliance-Alternative parties could find many other and much more democratic ways to put this issue on the agenda. The current blackmail may be a step towards citizenship law, but it is a hundred steps behind the needs of the people.