Montenegrin President Milo Gjukanovic, who is visiting Macedonia, went to the grave of legendary VMRO leader Goce Delcev today to pay his respects, but he was noticeably not accompanied by Macedonian President Stevo Stoka Pendarovski during his portion of the agenda.
Pendarovski did his utmost to dance to Sofia’s tunes and somehow became embroiled in a dispute with Bulgaria over Goce Delcev. S. S. Pendarovski became the darling of the Bulgarian press and politicians after he said that Goce Delcev has identified as an ethnic Bulgarian in parts of his life, which Delcev has never done. Pendarovski later explained he stated this in an effort to avoid getting Bulgaria to block Macedonia from joining NATO or opening EU accession talks.
But, last week Pendarovski gave another interview in which he managed to dig an even bigger hole for himself, implying that Delcev was pressured to falsely declare himself as a Bulgarian (it never happened), while actually having a Macedonian identity. Delcev attended the Sofia military academy and frequently operated from Bulgaria in his struggle to liberate Macedonia from Ottoman rule. Pendarovski compared the situation Delcev was in with the practice of the Bulgarian Government to allow Macedonians to get fast-tracked Bulgarian citizenship, which allow easy access to the EU labor market, if they declare themselves as Bulgarians.
Are you trying to tell me that in that historic context, in 1900, 1901, Goce Delcev was able to declare himself as Macedonian? Those were the circumstances at the time, Pendarovski said in his latter interview.
Is Pendarovski Zaev’s long lost twin brother!?
