VMRO-DPMNE party delegates voted with 489 votes in favor and three invalid ballots to re-elect Hristijan Mickoski as leader of the party. The congress of the conservative party is held two months after its major victory in the local elections, where VMRO swept most major cities and urban districts in Skopje, as well as a large majority of overall municipalities.

After the vote, Mickoski addressed the delegates in the “Jane Sandanski” sports hall in Skopje, to say that “an era of mobilization begins in which we will reach out to all free thinking citizens and ask them to join us in renewing our country”.

This second era is a call to all citizens to get engaged in political activism that will help our country. We want to hear the voice of the forgotten citizens who were left behind while the country is being plundered and led by lucrative motives of mediocrities. We are ready for dialogue with professors, writers, scientists, the young, the students, the unions and the businesses, Mickoski said.

He painted a dire picture of a country in which citizens are discouraged from becoming politically engaged because of the daily dose of humiliation and insults they are subjected to under the Zaev regime.

I call you to join us, including the politically unaffiliated, the undetermined. Help us bring about change and create a new future, with a new spirit of patriotism and shared responsibility, Mickoski said.

Mickoski also sent out a call to the ethnic minorities in the country for a New Deal, a new “concept of togetherness” that will lead to a societal consensus. “This will help us come back to how we originally imagined this country will look like when it was created, as an active unit of equal actors which will ensure just progress and equal opportunities for all, a vision we lost along the way in these three decades. The sincere enthusiasm was turned into nationalist bickering, often caused by politicians who wanted to use it as a distraction from the way they are running our country. A new societal contract will engage our shared patriotism and tear down the walls the politicians built among our citizens”, Mickoski added.

In the area of economy, the re-elected VMRO leader said that the party will bring down the income tax rate to 8 percent, and abolish it for young people. The aim will be an economic growth rate between 4 and 6 percent and single digit unemployment rate. Mickoski said that VMRO will bring the country among the 50 best performers in fighting corruption in the world, from today’s dismal record of 111th. The party will also ensure the creation of a regulated market for crypto currencies and the use of block-chain technology.