Vane Cvetanov, a minor political official who was close to both the VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM led governments, but also faced criminal investigations under both administrations, is the latest public figure to declare his Bulgarian ethnicity.

He recently began to share Bulgarian imagery on his social media accounts, and when asked by Fokus, Cvetanov said that he would declare himself as Macedonian while he was in public office, but now he has “learnt the truth”.

When I was young I didn’t know the facts well. But when I studied in Bulgaria, I read a lot of books and I got to know the history better, Cvetanov said.

Under VMRO-DPMNE, Cvetanov was charged with extortion, with the help of intelligence agents, who went after businessmen, for which he received a long detention and a suspended sentence. He supported SDSM’s Colored Revolution, and was named head of the Revision Council, but was fired after he hired his then wife, starlet Dunavka Trifunovska, and took her on publicly funded official trips. His coming out as Bulgarian was met with cynical comments that Cvetanov’ is possibly looking for a way to avoid further investigations.