Fokus reports that the Mayor of Skopje, Danela Arsovska, was sending threatening messages to an official she worked with, who later had her car torched.

The intimidation started in December 2021, when Arsovska asked the management of the SSK chamber of commerce, which she led for years, to resign. Current President of the chamber, which represents mid-sized companies, Trajan Angelovski, and another SSK official, Kristina Stojanovic, refused to resign. This is when they began to receive death threats.

In the police report, which was reviewed by Fokus, Stojanovic recalled that at the end of 2021 Arsovska sent her a text message and then called her, asking her to resign from SSK for siding with Angelovski. The calls and messages continued and got progressively uglier. In February, an unknown man called Stojanovic to threaten her, as SSK was working to review the financial records from the time of Arsovska’s management with the organization. Then, on February 28th, Stojanovic’s car was set on fire.

Arsovska was elected Mayor of Skopje last October, with the support of VMRO-DPMNE. But she quickly began to align herself with the SDSM led coalition, and formally broke ranks with VMRO in September. The SSK chamber continues to be registered at the apartment of Arsovska’s father, Vanco Jovanovski, who is a former top police official turned shady businessman, who is seen as the person driving Arsovska’s political career.