Jegunovce, 11 October 2025 (MIA) — SDSM leader Venko Filipche told a campaign rally in Jegunovce "the situation is getting worse in every way" because "not a single promise has been fulfilled over the year and a half of VMRO-DPMNE's rule at the central level and four years at the local level."

"It is already clear to citizens that the situation will only get worse with them," Filipche said, recalling that the government had promised "a better life, an economic boom, proud European integration under different conditions, a better standard of living." 

"They promised justice and fairness. What do we have today? Stagnation and regression," Filipche said, citing low salaries and high inflation.

"There is no justice, no reforms, no independent judiciary. There is no perspective towards the European Union either,” he said.

The SDSM leader said citizens did not want to hear complaints. "They want solutions. They want justice. They want a life of dignity," he said.

In response to VMRO-DPMNE's president and Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski's statement that the opposition had “pathological hatred toward VMRO-DPMNE,” Filipche said: “Mickoski talks about hatred when he himself is a source of hatred, of a destructive rhetoric dividing the nation and destabilizing the state.”

Filipche also accused Mickoski of verbal abuse, including name-calling.

"All year long he insults, belittles, divides the nation and calls the critics of his desperate policies 'rodents' and 'vultures'. All year long he stokes fear, threatens, spews insults on everyone – and then he plays the victim when people respond to him with the truth. All year long he talks about destabilization, hybrid attacks – while the only one who does any destabilizing is him, with his hate speech," he said. mr/