Serious turmoil is taking place in the ranks of the main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE, due to the conflict between the leader of this right-wing party, Christian Mickoski, and the former leader of the party and the country’s prime minister for many years, Nikola Gruevski, who, despite the fact that he is a fugitive in Hungary, still wields great influence in the party.

Specifically, Christian Mickoski, in an interview with the widely circulated German newspaper “FAZ”, accused Nikola Gruevski of being in secret negotiations with the government of North Macedonia, in order to grant him amnesty and be able to return to the country, in exchange for him exercise his influence over the opposition party and secure the votes of some VMRO-DPMNE MPs so that the government succeeds in securing the 2/3 majority in Parliament required to amend the country’s Constitution to include the Bulgarian minority of the country.

The response was immediate from Nikola Gruevski, who in a post on social media called on Christian Mickoski to justify his “baseless” claims and accused him of looking for an alibi in order to justify a possible failure of VMRO-DPMNE in the upcoming elections in the country .

Christian Mickoski “hit back” at Nikola Gruevski and in his “reply” also on social media, accused him of acting as a “Trojan horse” of the “corrupt” government of the Social Democratic Party and the Albanian DUI party and of seeking its disintegration VMRO-DPMNE.

The reason for this Mickoski-Gruevsky “conflict” was the recent approval by the Parliament of the amendment of the country’s Criminal Code, according to which the penalties are reduced and criminal offenses in which former officials of the country’s governments are involved (mainly VMRO- DPMNE).

A large part of the Skopje media and local political analysts believe that in essence this amendment to the Criminal Code, which was passed by the Parliament with the emergency procedure and without any prior consultation whatsoever, is done in order to grant amnesty to the fugitive in Hungary, the country’s former prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, and other former government officials during his administration, in exchange for some VMRO-DPMNE MPs to give their consent to the amendment of the Constitution and thus the government to secure a 2/3 majority , which is necessary to change the Constitution.

The government of Dimitar Kovacevsky rejects these claims and states that the amendments to the Criminal Code are in no way related to the “case” of Nikola Gruevski.

Nikola Gruevski was the country’s prime minister from 2006 to 2016. In November 2018, he fled to Hungary where he was granted political asylum by his political ally Viktor Orbán, in order to avoid serving a two-year prison sentence for corruption during his time as prime minister. In the meantime, several other decisions for multi-year sentences have been finalized against him. Gruevski, before his escape to Hungary, “made sure” that the “confidant” of Christian Mickoski was elected as the new leader of VMRO-DPMNE, provoking the anger of other “dolphins” of the party.

According to all opinion polls, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE is firmly ahead of the ruling Social Democratic Party by a wide margin. However, the “top” conflict between Gruevski and Mickowski may have an impact on the popularity of the opposition party.

The possibility of amending the Constitution, based on an agreement between North Macedonia and Bulgaria, in order to include the Bulgarian minority living in the country, has been causing tremors and confrontations in Skopje for over a year.

Bulgaria has blocked the start of North Macedonia’s accession negotiations with the EU for three years due to open ethnic, linguistic and historical differences between the two countries, which has provoked strong reactions from Skopje.

However, in the summer of 2022, the two countries reached an agreement, based on a proposal from the European Union, under which Sofia would lift its veto on the start of Skopje’s accession negotiations with the EU, provided that North Macedonia will proceed to amend its Constitution, with the inclusion in it of the Bulgarian people living in the country.

This agreement provokes strong reactions from the VMRO-DPMNE, which has declared in all tones that it will not consent to such an amendment to the country’s Constitution, but also from the large majority of the country’s Slavic population. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of the Albanian element, which represents 25% of the population of North Macedonia, supports the compromise with Bulgaria and the amendment of the Constitution.

VMRO-DPMNE claims that the agreement with Bulgaria was “dictated” by Sofia and considers it harmful to North Macedonia’s national interests.

Amending the Constitution of North Macedonia requires a 2/3 majority in Parliament, which the government in Skopje and the parties supporting the agreement with Bulgaria do not currently have. The political forces in the country that support the agreement with Bulgaria and the amendment of the Constitution have about 72 MPs out of 120 in the entire Parliament and to secure a 2/3 majority they need the consent of at least eight VMRO-DPMNE MPs.

The North Macedonian government accuses the VMRO-DPMNE leadership of holding the country “hostage” and diverting it from its European path.

The President of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, in a recent interview with APE-MPE, referring to his country’s relations with North Macedonia regarding the latter’s accession path to the EU, noted that “we should not talk about a Bulgarian veto” as, as he said, “the Copenhagen criteria and the Conclusions of the European Council of last July clearly set the conditions for the integration of Skopje, which should meet them”.

For their part, the EU and the USA have informed North Macedonia that if the amendment to the Constitution is not adopted, then the country is at risk of international isolation.

According to the last population census carried out in 2021 in North Macedonia, Bulgarians represent only 0.2% of the country’s population (a total of 3,500 people), a fact which the official Sofia disputes and considers the percentage of Bulgarians in North Macedonia it is much larger.