VMRO-DPMNE held a rally in Valandovo today, where party leader Hristijan Mickoski condemned the SDSM presidential candidate Stevo Pendarovski for “failing to condemn the crime and corruption of SDSM and DUI officials in the Government”.

Stevo Pendarovski went missing for five years, he was nowhere to be seen when it came to meet the retirees, the farmers, the young. All we heard from him were insults aimed at our candidate professor Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova, a pledge to move out of the country if he’s not President and his claim that Goce Delcev was Bulgarian. Did you hear him say something about Ali Ahmeti, Artan Grubi, Bujar Osmani or Talat Xhaferi? Are they honest politicians, in his opinion?, asked Mickoski, after listing Pendarovski’s most controversial comments and positions.

In Valandovo, Mickoski and Siljanovska were joined by former President Gjorge Ivanov, who is from this city.

Mickoski and Siljanovska also raised the recent listing of Macedonia as a cyclical hybrid regime by the US democracy watchdog Freedom House, which undermines one of the key promises of the DUI-SDSM coalition – that they will advance democracy and the rule of law. The downward trend in the report is precisely because of the high level of corruption concentrated in the Government.

Valandovo is in the 4th, south-eastern electoral district, where SDSM is nominating former Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce as head of their list for the general elections. “He was the most responsible person for the failure of our healthcare system. Filipce failed to provide the most basic conditions for treatment, but now he’s back in politics, and is abusing his role as doctor to promote himself”, Mickoski said.