Even with Zaev gone, the consequences of his policies will be felt for a long time, said VMRO-DPMNE official Antonio Milososki during a round table the party organized today. Milososki pointed to some of the main failures of the Zaev regime which he said have hurt Macedonia badly.

The concept of Zaevism is, for example, to create conditions for private companies to win suspicious public procurement contracts, such as in the ELEM energy company, leading to a collapse in energy production and the announced firing of a large number of employees, while companies linked to Zaev are removing the coal reserves. It is to declare that the United States are our strategic partner, but to leave the Embassy in Washington without an ambassador for five years, and to nominate a crony candidate like Ljubomir Frckoski who became the first nominee who was rejected by the US. We have no ambassadors in Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, handicapping our economic prospects, or in Canada, Brazil, Belgium, China, Israel, Egypt, Milososki said.

Party spokeswoman Marija Miteva pointed to other failures such as disastrous hospital fire in Tetovo in which 14 patients were killed, and there was no accountability from the Government officials involved in building the improvised hospital.

At this moment we have three crises in Macedonia – a two years long healthcare crisis where we are making no progress, an economic crisis, and now also an energy crisis. The most painful one, for me, is the healthcare crisis, where we saw the Government trying to profit, to take a cut from the procurement of vaccines, while columns of our citizens were driving to Serbia to try to get vaccinated, Miteva added.

VMRO member of Parliament from Kumanovo Brane Petrusevski added that with the appointment of Dimitar Kovacevski as a handpicked successor to Zaev in the party, nothing will change.

A democratic model is when the majority of citizens directly decide who will run the country. That is why we desperately need quick early general elections, in which Mr. Kovacevski will be able to present his program, his vision and projects. Maybe he will be received better than Zaev was. But the citizens need to have their say, Petrusevski added.