Prominent supporters of Zoran Zaev’s 2015 Colored Revolution are flocking to their social media to express their disgust after in a BGNES interview, Zaev accepted practically all demands from Bulgaria. In the interview, Zaev also absolved Bulgaria of the occupation of Macedonia in World War Two, and actually praised it for joining with the allies in the end of the war, and added that it was the fault of Yugoslavia to keep Macedonia apart from Bulgaria. This greatly angered parts of Zaev’s base on the pro-Yugoslav left.

Zaev insulted the dead and the living. We can’t blame Yugoslavia for the deaths of Kuzman Josifovski, Mirce Acev, Straso Pindzur, Stiv Naumov, Orce Nikolov.. and many other victims of the “administrators” who didn’t shy away from killing minors. Yugoslavia has other sins, its own victims, but we are not negotiating with it. It is gone and its history doesn’t threaten us now on the path to EU accession. That is not to allow the, to say lightly, putting lipstick on the years under Bulgarian occupation. What Zaev is doing is capitulation. His half made up statements insult the memory of all Macedonians and the ease with which he is doing it horriifies us. He is selling what is not his to sell, said Vladimir Milcin, the long serving head of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation in Macedonia, who was instrumental in organizing the Colored Revolution and elevating Zaev to power.

Journalist Goran Mihajlovski, another die-hard supporter of the ruling SDSM party, said that he will have to run home to turn off the TV so his elderly mother doesn’t hear what Zaev is now saying about Bulgaria. “She still has her wits and remembers the beatings the Bulgarian administration dished out in Bitola”, Mihajlovski said.