English
The SDSM government accepted everything Bulgaria demanded. They even negotiated the sale of five private Macedonian companies. That is why we are in this position,” stated Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski.
In 2022, SDSM accepted everything from Bulgaria; they handed the Bulgarians a blank sheet of paper, the Bulgarians wrote down whatever they wanted, and SDSM signed it. The VMRO-DPMNE government—Hristijan Mickoski’s government—did not negotiate a package deal (and I don’t even know how such a thing could be negotiated, given that these are private companies) to sell a national TV station, a telecom operator, a bank, a mine, and a cable operator to Bulgaria. We did not negotiate such things, nor are we doing so now. Bulgaria pursued this because it saw a servile government on the other side—one ready to sell everything off. These were the kinds of deals negotiated by the SDSM government led by Zoran Zaev and Dimitar Kovacevski—a government in which Venko Filipche also served as Minister of Health, Nikoloski said in a radio interview, without revealing the names of the companies that Zaev was allegedly bartering with.
The fundamental difference, as Nikoloski emphasized, is that SDSM sold out national interests, which is why the citizens punished them at the polls.
That is the fundamental difference between us and them. We must focus on these matters because we need to understand how we arrived at this point.” We didn’t get to this point because we woke up one morning with nothing better to do and decided to pick a fight with our neighbors; rather, it was because the other side consisted of a political structure whose sole interest was lining their pockets and then skipping town—which explains the state they are in now. The people spoke clearly in 2024. VMRO-DPMNE, together with its coalition partners—”Vredi” and ZNAM—secured 58 MPs, while SDSM won 18. SDSM is more or less locked in at the number of MPs you see them holding now; they might gain or lose one or two seats depending on a bit of luck on election day. In any European country, it is natural for the opposition to grow; the fact that you aren’t growing means you have a problem, Nikoloski emphasized in the interview.