Following their scandalous decision to not air the Macedonian national anthem during the visit of Alexis Tsipras, the ruling SDSM party yesterday performed the anthem “Today over Macedonia” at their convention in Skopje. VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski told them that it’s “too little too late”.

I was part of the Guard battalion, First company of the guards, in the Army of the Republic of Macedonia. Whenever a foreign dignitary arrived we would be ordered for the welcoming ceremony, for their arrival and departure. And now we see how Zoran Zaev’s new friend is welcomed without the guard, without the anthem. The truth is that Zoran Zaev is ashamed to stand there with his friend and hear the words of the anthem, the words that speak of Macedonia and of the Macedonian fight for justice. They know that justice is coming for them, for all their crimes, Mickoski said during his pre-election rally in Kavadarci.

Despite the insistence from the Government that the song and the guard of honor were scrapped from the official ceremony because “Tsipras’ plane landed too late”, Zoran Zaev yesterday acknowledged that the symbols “may have been a problem for the Greeks”. Zaev added that his Government is adaptable and “something could have been sown up on the uniforms” of the honor guard which bear the name Republic of Macedonia, revealing what everyone suspected – that the original excuse why the anthem and the guard were omitted was a lie.