THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PARTY VMRO DPMNE TOWARDS ITS MEMBERS OF THE MUSLIM FAITH

Abstract

Macedonia is living the fourth decade of its independence, building a new political system,
different from the previous one. The new political system rests on democratic values, in an age
of neoliberal pluralism. The new political system builds а mosaic of multi-ethnicity and multi-confessionalism.
Political parties are the key factor within the political system, in which citizens organize
and articulate their political participation. It is easier for the Macedonian left, represented by
the political party SDSM, to accommodate the new situation as former communists and atheists
and to nurture contemporary multiconfessionalism. The challenge is for the right, represented
by the VMRO DPMNE political party, which from its establishment to the last Congress of 2021,
its first ideological determinant was Christian democracy. Given that Macedonia is a multiethnic
and multiconfessional environment, the parties are striving for their representativeness. Election
analysis shows that the right is present in environments with Muslim faith. Further in the composition
of the parliamentary caucus or mayors, the establishment of citizens with Muslim faith in
the VMRO DPMNE party may be observed. It can be assumed that the Christian Democrats have
Muslim members. A real sociological challenge is to investigate the attitude of this party towards
its members of the Muslim faith, how it approaches and mobilizes them. As well as analyzing
Muslim members’ attachment to the party, what their motives for membership are, how they are
organized within the party, what common beliefs or values they share. An examination of this interrelation
may provide the answer, why this party after 30 years of its existence and profiling as
a Christian democratic party, at the last Congress in 2021, adopted a doctrine in which it profiled
itself as a people’s party.