As the public is torn over the “mistaken” performance of the national anthem by singer Tamara Todevska, some on the left are pushing the proposal to actually delete VMRO leader Goce Delcev from the anthem. Tamara caused an uproar when she omitted the verse naming Delcev and three other VMRO heroes during her performance at the US Embassy 4th of July event, and despite her apology and protestations that it was a mistaken, given the political situation in Macedonia many suspected that there is something more to her version of the song.

Now Zoran Ivanov, former spokesman to President Branko Crvenkovski and journalist close to the ruling SDSM party, openly called that Delcev is removed from the anthem.

Why are you going on about the anthem? Half the country won’t accept it anyway. Go on, change it already, and Goce was not Goce either, Ivanov wrote on his Facebook account.

Ivanov later deleted the comment. Macedonia is pressured by Bulgaria to declare Goce Delcev a Bulgarian national hero as part of the talks on a “joint historical narrative” that are held under the 2017 Zaev – Borisov treaty. Many saw Tamara’s performance as a “trial balloon”, to begin a “discussion” over Goce Delcev and the anthem, and Ivanov seems to have tried to do just that.

Ivanov is the founder of the Macedonian Information Agency, the state news agency of Macedonia, and recently he was involved in its renaming into the “Media Information Agency” in order to meet the requirements of the other neighborly treaty Zaev signed – the one with Greece.