Filipche: Mickoski "lives in his own world" as citizens face empty wallets and refrigerators

SDSM leader Dr. Venko Filipche accused Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski on Thursday of governing out of touch with most citizens, saying the administration has entered its third year without concrete results in key areas while people struggle with "empty wallets and empty refrigerators."

Filipche lists sectors where he sees failure

At a press briefing, Filipche said he sees no progress in the economy, health care, education or agriculture, and warned that North Macedonia received its worst report from the European Union amid setbacks in the rule of law and media freedom.

"We do not see results in the economy, in health care, in education, in agriculture. We have the worst report from the European Union, there is no rule of law, no reforms in the judiciary, no freedom of the media," Filipche said.

He also criticised Mickoski's public presentations of statistical data as disconnected from ordinary people’s lives, saying the prime minister addresses citizens with mockery and condescension.

Filipche quoted what he heard in a recent interview by Mickoski and highlighted the numbers the prime minister used: "Yesterday I heard him in the interview, wages have increased 70 times or percent, whatever he wanted to say, faster, pensions, imagine, 325 percent, he compares it with the time of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia governments. But citizens cannot be deceived," Filipche said.

Filipche concluded by saying those figures exist only "in the world in which he and his small circle live," while most people experience a very different reality. "They see empty wallets and empty refrigerators," he said.

Photo: press material from the event