Mickoski is direct and open in the interview for Plusinfo, made one day after the nomination of Dimitar Kovacevski, the man we expect to replace Zaev as Prime Minister.

Mickoski is convinced that after the next parliamentary elections he will be in a position to negotiate the composition of the new government. For the last maneuvers of Zoran Zaev, he thinks that it is an attempt for his escape from politics, in order to take away everything that has been robbed so far, but with that he only insults the intelligence of the citizens.

If he thinks that by nominating a person who is relatively unknown to the public and that way the public will forget that they have been in power for 52 months and that they have been looting, humiliating and selling out Macedonia for 52 months. As a government that has ruled Macedonia for four and a half years, it is making another unsuccessful maneuver, which aims to make a fine grounding outside politics and a quick evacuation and dislocation of everything that has been robbed so far. Of course, it is an attempt to hide all the illegal acts that Zaev committed in the past period.

I do not think that a significant and qualitative step will come out of this, because this man (Kovacevski) has been Deputy Minister of Finance so far and we do not have any brilliant reform in the field of monetary policy, on the contrary, if you look at the deficit you will see that it is more than 500 million euros, the realization of capital investments is catastrophic, amounting to 250 million euros, which means that we have twice as much deficit as capital investments. The debt is growing, the economy is terrible, and foreign direct investment is low, as in no other country in the region. Albania, Kosovo and Serbia are far from Macedonia per capita. So, this political maneuver, I will repeat once again, I see it only as an attempt to insult the intelligence of this people and an attempt to influence the voters, in order to forget what this Government has done to the country in the past period, said Mickoski.

Regarding the announced new opposition action following the unsuccessful attempt to vote no confidence in the Government, he says that he personally and the leaders of the parties that entered the operation to vote no confidence in the Government, were guided by the idea at the moment when they saw that the current Government has made many problems that will only deepen, and it has no capacity to solve them. We as a state-building party wanted to deal with the problems and help.None of us, at any moment, thought about seizing power, we were not interested in that, he said.

But they decided to perform a savage act. Although Mr. Kastriot Rexhepi presented a certain truth, he himself knows that what he is saying is not true. It can be seen from his facial expressions that what he is saying is not even close to the truth. But that is now behind us, said Mickoski.

According to him the new opposition action they announced is a novelty in the political history of Macedonia.

For the first time, an opposition party did so well in the local elections. We have 42 mayors, and we supported the mayor of Skopje, Danela Arsovska. At the moment, what was promised in the elections is being realized. That is why I am constantly going from place to place, because in the campaign I was looking for the voice of the people with the promises given by the mayors. About two thirds of the inhabitants in the country live in the municipalities where the mayors of VMRO-DPMNE are in power. We can show here that when we get the central government, what will be our priority, and that will certainly be the fulfillment of the promise. Motivated by that, I am now going to check what has been fulfilled by the promises in all the municipalities where we have won, he said.

In the interview he agrees that this means that the success of the mayors whom they supported in the campaign will mean success of the opposition party in the next parliamentary elections.

It is the input component of the equation and the citizens in the next early parliamentary elections will appreciate and vote on the basis of what these people, who have now gained their trust, will be able to deliver. It may not be 100 percent because of that, but I am convinced that the decision to go to the polls first in the parliamentary elections, and then to give the vote to the coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE, will depend on how successful these mayors have been, says Mickoski.

Regarding the the negotiations with Bulgaria, Mickoski says talks should be focused on education, culture, projects, joint capital investments, building highways and high-speed railways, and leave the history to the experts.

History must not be the reason for Bulgaria to hinder Macedonia’s European process. Any help from them, such as knowledge and experience in the EU membership process is welcome. We are ready to talk about everything, but I think the things that happened in the past will not bring any solution. I urge Brussels bureaucrats to influence our eastern neighbor, so that this problem can be overcome in a European spirit, said Mickoski.

As to the energy crisis, he says that it can only be resolved with a lot of money, money from the citizens.

Even now, even if we want to deal with the crisis, we cannot do otherwise. Why? Because when oil prices were low, we did not create stocks. We did not anticipate the risks properly and did not increase stocks. Then we could buy enough fuel oil, oil and petroleum products at very low prices. When the price of electricity was low we did not buy futures and when we had to make repairs in the energy facilities and open the mining shafts so that we could dig coal today, we did not do that then. Instead of doing so, the authorities organized themselves into cartel associations in order to make personal profits. The fourth anomaly in the whole process is the poor management of water potential. Water reserves used to generate electricity are zero. So not to the minimum, but to zero. This situation will be corrected by spending budget funds. If we follow the rate of funds spent so far for the purchase of electricity and servicing the losses from the overdue repairs, then by the end of the winter the amount for overcoming the crisis that will have to be allocated from the state budget could reach 250 million euros, he said.

Asked whether the party has cleared up with the burden of the past, created in the time of Nikola Gruevski, Mickoski says that this is a new generation of VMRO-DPMNE, which proved itself in the elections.

Two convincing victories in both rounds, bigger than any other victory in the past. It is the result of a lot of work, effort and strategy. I am grateful to my associates in the party. Many bad things have been done in the past, but also many good things. I do not intend to talk about my predecessors (Ljubco) Georgievski and Gruevski, because that is how I was brought up. I will speak neither good nor bad about people who are no longer part of the party. We are politicians and our valuation is valorized by the support we receive in elections, he said.