Bonum Certa Men Certa

An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part X: A “Fall Guy” For the Deputy Minister?

Series index:

  1. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé -- Part I: A New EPO Balkan Affair?
  2. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part II: A Mysterious Fist-Bumping Masquerade in Skopje
  3. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part III: A Longtime Associate of the Doyen
  4. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part IV: A Party Political Animal
  5. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part V: Sharing Out the Spoils of Public Office
  6. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part VI: A Learned Legal Luminary
  7. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part VII: An Academic Institution With a Political Mission
  8. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part VIII: An Inspector Calls
  9. An EPO Administrative Council Exposé — Part IX: “There Are Indications of a Violation of the Law…”
  10. You are here ☞ A "Fall Guy" For the Deputy Minister?


Safet Emruli for Albania
Did Emruli (right) end up as a "fall guy" for his more senior party colleague Agim Nuhiu (left)?



Summary: The party politics which led to the disappearance of one enabler of Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos; another delegate recently emerged at the EPO's Administrative Council

As we mentioned in the last part, Emruli submitted his resignation as Director of the North Macedonian State Office for Intellectual Property (SOIP) some time around 22 October 2020.



"Bekteshi was one of Emruli's former "protectors" who had supported his reappointment in 2018. It was therefore to be expected that Bekteshi would try to retain Emruli at the helm of the SOIP."His departure came as something of a surprise because Kreshnik Bekteshi from the DUI had managed to hold on to his position as Minister for the Economy in the new government formed in following the July election.

Bekteshi was one of Emruli's former "protectors" who had supported his reappointment in 2018. It was therefore to be expected that Bekteshi would try to retain Emruli at the helm of the SOIP.

Bekteshi and Topic in SOIP
DUI Minister Bekteshi (left) with EPO Vice-President Topić at a SOIP event in October 2018. Bekteshi supported Emruli's reappointment in 2018 but was unable to save him in 2020.



However, as will be explained in more detail below, there are reasons to suspect that Emruli ended up as a "casualty" of inter-party political machinations and deal-making connected with the formation of the new government in the late summer of 2020.

Goran Gerasinmovski
Was Gerasimovski's promotion as head of the SOIP part of backroom political deal which involved shafting Emruli?



The current government in North Macedonia which was formed after the July 2020 general election is a coalition led by the social-democratic SDSM in an alliance with the DUI and BESA.

Both of the junior coalition partners, DUI and BESA, represent the ethnic Albanian minority. BESA was founded in 2014. It is a centre-left social-democratic party with less nationalistic "baggage" than the DUI and, in the run-up to the July 2020 election, it formed a pre-election pact with the Macedonian SDSM. Although it BESA a relative newcomer to the political scene, it has nevertheless succeeded in establishing itself as the second largest ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia after the DUI.

"It was recently announced in the Macedonian press that he had entered the race as a candidate for the position of the municipality's mayor in the upcoming local elections."Turning now to Emruli's successor as director of the SOIP, Goran Gerasinmovski is known to be a member of the SDSM, the dominant partner in the current coalition. As matter of fact, he is one of the party's rising stars – or at least he appears to have aspirations in that direction.

More specifically, Gerasimovski is the chairman of the party's local branch in Centar, a municipality of the capital city Skopje where he resides. It was recently announced in the Macedonian press that he had entered the race as a candidate for the position of the municipality's mayor in the upcoming local elections.

Goran Gerasinmovski, SDSM
Goran Gerasimovski has been an active member of the social-democratic SDSM since 2000.



Emruli's resignation and Gerasimovski's promotion to director of the SOIP seem to have been part of some kind of backroom political deal hammered out between the SDSM and the DUI during the formation of the new government.

"As a matter of fact, Nuhiu was so rattled by the exposure of his unlawful activities at SUT, that he tried unsuccessfully to intimidate Ilievski into covering up the affair."In September 2020, about a month before Emruli's resignation was announced, it was reported in the Macedonian media that the SDSM's Albanian coalition partners, the DUI and BESA, were to get seven deputy minister posts between them. One of the new deputy ministers was Agim Nuhui who was earmarked to become Deputy Minister for Justice.

Agim Nuhui
Despite being heavily compromised by the SUT affair, Nuhiu's appointment as Deputy Minister for Justice was announced in September 2020.



As has already been mentioned in the earlier parts of the series, Nuhiu was one of the three DUI officials who had been heavily compromised by the irregularities at the SUT Faculty of Law uncovered by Gjorgji Ilievski in April 2019.

At the time in question he was the Deputy Minister for the Interior. As a matter of fact, Nuhiu was so rattled by the exposure of his unlawful activities at SUT, that he tried unsuccessfully to intimidate Ilievski into covering up the affair. [PDF]

Following Ademi's departure from the Ministry for Education in August 2020, it seems plausible that the SDSM additionally demanded Emruli's head as the price for Nuhiu's promotion to second-in-charge at the Justice Ministry. In this way the SDSM could then hope to exploit the opportunity created by Emruli's departure to parachute their own man into the top position at the SOIP.

"If this analysis of events is correct, then it seems that Emruli ended up being obliged to play the "fall guy" for his more senior party comrade Nuhiu."Whatever political deal was cut behind the scenes, Emruli fell on his sword shortly after attending the 164th meeting of the EPO Administrative Council on 13 October 2020 (held as an e-meeting). It can be safely assumed that in doing so he was following instructions from his superiors in the DUI who appear to have decided that he had to be sacrificed for the "greater good" of the party.

If this analysis of events is correct, then it seems that Emruli ended up being obliged to play the "fall guy" for his more senior party comrade Nuhiu. He was forced to bite the bullet and resign while Nuhiu escaped unscathed - for the moment at least.

It now remains to be seen how the prosecutorial investigation into the irregularities at the SUT Faculty of Law will proceed under the newly appointed deputy Minister for Justice - honi soît qu mal y pense...

"In the remaining parts of the series we will turn our attention to the broader implications of this latest "Balkan Affair" for EPO governance."That more or less concludes our efforts to cast some badly needed light on the circumstances surrounding Safet Emruli's sudden and mysterious "disappearance" from the EPO's Administrative Council towards the end of 2020.

In the remaining parts of the series we will turn our attention to the broader implications of this latest "Balkan Affair" for EPO governance.

Join us in the next part as we hop on board the "Balkan Express" to take a look at some of the problems afflicting "captured states" in South-Eastern Europe, in particular North Macedonia.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
 
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Snowy Photos and utism is a Spectrum
Links for the day
Microsoft-Sponsored Xenophobia and Nationalism
IBM is very similar in this regard
Vintage is Sometimes Better
Why can't we get back to "simple" if (or where) "simple" means better?
Climate Breakdown Means We'll be Publishing More, Not Less
Press freedom will be a common, recurring theme
Our 5-Year Geminispace Anniversary is Coming Up
I still remember when Gemini Protocol was quite new
It's Right to Point Out Violence From the Right
Violence is a recurring theme
Tentative Summary of Things to Publish in Project 2030
I'll still be in my forties by then
Web Browsers That "Do Hey Hi" (AI)
State-of-the-art plagiarism or "autocomplete on steroids" (not coined by us, nevertheless a nice description) don't have much/any prospect
Links 20/09/2025: Hardware Projects in View, Some Independent Publishers About Russia Prosper After Cheeto Cuts Funding
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Options and TV Time Machine
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Retrocomputer, Antique Phone Experience, and More
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Internet Shutdowns, Media Censorship, and Climate Worries
Links for the day
About 700 New Gemini Capsules in 13 Months (or 54 Per Month)
4.8K would represent a 20% increase
Rust People: Drain the Swap, You're Holding It Wrong
Does Rust make sense?
Techrights the Name Turns 15
About 6 weeks from now we turn 19
Microsoft is Running Out of Time and Floating Fake Figures, Fake Projects, Fake Narratives, Fake Excuses
Also, a lot of Microsoft's "revenue" claims are circular financing (i.e. Microsoft buying from itself, which means Ponzi-like fraud)
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, linuxconfig.org, and Plagiarised Phoronix
Many articles out there are nowadays fake
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 19, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Navigating the Pressures of Modern Life and SpellBinding Accidentally Wrote Another Gemini Server
Links for the day