In an interview with Alfa TV, army Colonel Dragan Kovacki, who is a candidate at the coming general elections for VMRO-DPMNE, spoke out strongly against the attempts to paint the opposition party as opposed to NATO and the European Union. Kovacki said that it’s laughable when such claims come from the socalist SDSM party, which he said “was built around a pro-Russian, pro-Serbian structure”.

As an army officer, I completed my education in London and took part in the Freedom for Iraq mission. What greater proof could there be that we are allied with the US and the Western world?, Kovacki said during his interview.

SDSM has campaigned strongly to paint VMRO-DPMNE as pro-Russian during the Colored Revolution of 2015 and the subsequent push to rename and redefine Macedonia and the Macedonian national identity. Opposing the name change, according to SDSM, is evidence of being opposed to Western values, and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev is again running on the issue in the coming elections.