1 When you read the title of the VREDI press release: “Saraj enters the international agenda”, you’d think that the Government’s coalition partners had phoned in straight from within Donald Trump’s perimeter to deliver good news of yet another truce in the Middle East. The press release opens with the statement that “the Municipality of Saraj is entering a new chapter of affirmation and international cooperation”.
You don’t say… And what gave them that idea? The Municipality was visited by the Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy, Nicole Varnes, which supposedly “attests to the increased attention and respect for this Municipality”. But, wait, that’s not all. The European Union Ambassador, Michalis Rokas, had previously been to Saraj as well, and therefore, read this carefully: “Saraj is, for the first time, positioning itself on the agenda of key international actors”.
Wow. Hang on! Did we perhaps blink for a moment and miss Izet Mexhiti, Bilal Kasami and Afrim Gashi actively taking part in the negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? And is the mayor of Saraj, Muhamed Elmazi, serving as an on-the-ground facilitator in the negotiations, personally involved from the confluence of the Treska River into the Vardar River. Because, as VREDI would have it: “Saraj today, under Muhamed Elmazi, demonstrates the capacity, vision and commitment to be an active participant in decisive and international processes”.
Either VREDI don’t live on this planet if they truly believe that “Saraj is becoming a reference point for dialogue and cooperation”, or they’re trying to send a message to their coalition partner, VMRO-DPMNE, ahead of the announced congress at which they’re meant to grow into a proper party. All this fanfare in a single statement, just to signal to Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and VMRO-DPMNE: The Americans are with us, as they were with DUI. And the EU is with us too. So, watch yourselves, don’t mess with us. We’re the new DUI. Since we’re a “reference point for dialogue and cooperation”, it’s clear that we’re the new darlings of the international community.
2 They really do take us for fools, both the government and the opposition, trying to outmanoeuvre each other over who wants to amend the law more so that only people with exclusively Macedonian citizenship can serve as MPs. If they want it that badly, if they’re in such agreement, they should stop wasting our time and fast-track it.
But in order to amend the law, they’ll first have to amend the Constitution, because, under Article 23, “every citizen has the right to participate in the exercise of public functions”.
Why don’t MPs and officials simply declare how many citizenships they hold? Just as elected officials disclose to the Anti-Corruption Commission how much money they have in the bank and what property they own when entering politics, so too, when they run for public office, they should declare to the State Election Commission (SEC) how many passports they hold when entering the election race. I’m not saying that they must renounce their foreign citizenship if they wish to hold public office, as is the case in some other countries. But, as a voter, I would very much like to know whether the person seeking my support to make decisions on my behalf has a backup homeland alongside my homeland. Then I can decide for myself whether to vote for such a candidate. That’s not a private matter. When you’re an official, the question of how many passports you hold becomes a matter of public interest. After all, we entrust them with our public money.
The issue of officials holding Bulgarian passports won’t lose its relevance, especially since Rumen Radev won the elections in Bulgaria, so it’s certain that the veto on our EU accession will continue. But those of us patiently waiting to enter the EU exclusively with a Macedonian passport would at least like to know, at election time, which candidates for MP, future prime minister, minister, mayor, municipal councillor, ambassador or any other public office also have a backup homeland. Especially when those same people campaign on slogans about pride and growing a backbone, yet dropped on their knees and sang Bulgarian songs in some police station in Kyustendil or Blagoevgrad in order to obtain a passport from a country that’s currently Macedonia’s biggest enemy.
So how about you stop bothering us with nonsense? It’s bad enough that the European Union treats us as second-class citizens abroad, now we’re expected, at home, to justify who’s the prouder Macedonian. You’ve decided to become Bulgarians in the EU, you’ve figured things out, shut up and get on with it. Don’t go measuring how much we, who’ve chosen to hold only a Macedonian passport, love Macedonia.
3 At the latest hearing of the Kochani fire trial, only one girl appeared as a witness. The defence lawyers asked her whether she was a construction inspector, simply because she testified that sponge and Styrofoam had been burning. The parents of the children who died have stopped attending the hearings.
Just five months after proceedings began over the fire in the makeshift building in which 63 people died and over 200 were injured on 16 March 2025, we already find ourselves sinking into the quicksand of the Macedonian judiciary. And we’ll sink deeper still.
And it’s not as if we didn’t know it would come to this. That in the end, those who went to the illegal nightclub would be blamed. And those who survived would be made to prove their innocence.
4 Customs seized 20 Apple watches that a Skopje mobile phone shop had tried to smuggle in, and placed them in a safe while the investigation was ongoing. However, someone within Customs who had access to the safe removed the seized watches and returned them to the mobile phone shop to be sold, and replaced them with cheap knock-offs.
Now that’s what you call creative public service.
Much like the former president of the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (SCPC), Tatjana Dimitrovska, who found a creative way of obtaining a certificate for handling state secrets. She’s on trial because, for two years in a row, a colleague from the State Audit Office sat the security clearance exam on her behalf. And he even got an excellent result. Afterwards, she texted him: “You’re golden! Lunch is on me”.
Ah yes, a country of golden children, where even the state secret exam is no secret at all.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
