Supporters of SDSM presidential candidate Stevo Pendarovski began an orchestrated campaign today to declare the VMRO-DPMNE candidate Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova as weak on the dispute with Bulgaria.

Twitter and Facebook commentators aligned with SDSM massively shared a picture of Siljanovska with Bulgarian nationalist politician and member of the European Parliament Andrey Kovatchev, insisting that this meeting, which took place at an EU venue, is a scandalous betrayal of Macedonian national interests.

The only problem, the picture was take five years ago, during Siljanovska’s previous presidential run, and before the dispute with Bulgaria reached the current heated levels. Moreover, after the meeting, Kovatchev issued a statement declaring his disappointment with Siljanovska’s positions on his demands – confirming that Siljanovska held her ground and did not make compromises with the Bulgarian nationalist agenda. Even SDSM affiliated “fact-checkers” issued an extremely rare rebuke of the ruling party, and declared the allegations “not true”.

The campaign is likely planned to distract the public from Pendarovski’s own positions on the issue. Most notably, in 2019 he gave Bulgarian propagandists a major victory, when he said that legendary VMRO leader Goce Delcev had himself declared a Bulgarian identity. Then Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov – Kovatchev’s party leader – welcomed Pendarovski’s statement as an acknowledgement from the top of the Macedonian leadership that the Bulgarian reading of the Macedonian history is correct and should be studied in Macedonian schools. Pendarovski tried to reel back his statement by saying that Delcev declared that he has a Bulgarian identity not from conviction but in order to be admitted to the Bulgarian military academy – this only angered Sofia, and was seen as a highly disrespectful comment from Pendarovski.

Pendarovski also endorsed the so-called French proposal, which would create an institutional framework for Bulgaria to demand minority rights for the Bulgarian community in Macedonia – even as it angrily rejects any such rights for the Macedonian community in Bulgaria. In 2022 Pendarovski insisted that the Bulgarian demands are unacceptable, but only days later, he accepted them and insisted that he participated in the creation of this proposal. Bulgaria is openly announcing that the minority rights package is only the first step and that the French proposal will also give Bulgaria the right to condition Macedonia’s EU accession talks with further demands, affecting Macedonia’s historic narrative and national identity.

As further proof that the “photograph scandal” that Pendarovski’s camp engineered is part of their smear campaign, Pendarovski began his campaign by provoking a dispute with Bulgaria. In recent remarks, he accepted the VMRO-DPMNE position that Macedonia needs to raise the question of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, which, he said, has suffered greatly in this country. Since this is a comment coming from a sitting President, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry summoned the Macedonian ambassador to Sofia and handed her a stern note condemning “certain factors in Skopje who continue to use our country as an excuse for their lack of progress”. This seems to be part of Pendarovski’s attempt to reposition himself on an issue that resonates very strongly with the SDSM party base and greatly contributed to the loss of support for this party. Despite years of appeasement of Bulgaria and major public concessions such as the Delcev statement, Pendarovski now wants to portray himself as a defender of Macedonian national interests, while presenting Siljanovska as weak on this issue.