Venko Filipche posts surgical photo and says: "It's time to finally operate on the system. Without anesthesia"

Venko Filipche, leader of the opposition SDSM, published a photograph on his Facebook page showing him in surgical clothing just before entering an operating theatre and used a medical metaphor to attack the government led by VMRO‑DPMNE and Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.

Filipche frames political criticism as a live operation

In the Facebook post Filipche — a practising neurosurgeon by profession — argued that the state needs a systemic intervention and presented that argument in clinical terms. He wrote that the action must be performed "on the living" and accompanied the message with the image in surgical scrubs.

Filipche wrote: "Surgery requires precision, responsibility and clean hands. The politics that VMRO and Mickoski lead — the opposite. While we save lives, they poison the state with lies, divisions and crime. It's time to finally operate on the system. Without anesthesia."

He used a medical-political vocabulary to contrast his own professional practice with what he described as the conduct of the ruling party. The post directly targeted VMRO‑DPMNE and Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.

There is no available information indicating whether the phrase "Without anesthesia" should be read as a signal of radicalization or a harder political line by SDSM; the post has so far not been clarified by Filipche.

Photo: press material from the event