Venko Filipçe calls SDSM’s internal critics “putschists” and “schemers,” the “12.05” platform responds: “Manipulations!”

As 24 Vesti television reports, the leader of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), Venko Filipçe, came out before the media on Sunday with harsh accusations against the internal platform “Talks about the future at 12:05”. From the party podium, he named the people who, according to him, want to undermine the party’s homogeneity, labeling them “schemers” and “putschists”, and demanded they answer on what their “principled positions” are based, after the September 26 meeting organized by the platform and attended also by the radical left Levica.

Filipçe has accused the platform of acting on the orders of Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, saying that those who “almost buried the party, Mickoski sends against SDSM”. According to him, the reform plan the platform is expected to hand to the party leadership next week was written “in Mickoski’s white palace” and will not pass. He called the meeting participants “satellites of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE”, reminding them of what they had gained when SDSM was in power and to whom they now turn their backs.

The “12:05” platform responded quickly via a Facebook status: “We understand today’s nervousness, but we will not leave such manipulations unanswered.” The organizers said Filipçe had gathered half the leadership and about a hundred people in the audience at the press conference — less than one percent of the votes he claims to have received in the party’s internal elections. They accused him of hysteria and said the “give-and-take” Mickoski–Filipçe tandem must be defeated, claiming Filipçe is blackmailed and must work for VMRO-DPMNE.

The Saturday (September 26) meeting of the platform was attended by current and former SDSM members and officials, while guests included Levica representative Amar Mecinoviq and representatives of the Serb party. Those present told Filipçe that he and the people around him are already a faction within SDSM, that the membership and the votes are with them, and that he works for the interests of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE — after he had earlier accused them of attempted putsch and of being “mercenaries” of the largest party in power.

The platform, which demands Filipçe’s resignation, announced that next week it will hand the SDSM leadership a “Plan of consolidation and structural changes” — former deputy chairman Igor Ivanovski said the membership, “in an overwhelming majority”, is on their side, while MP Slavjanka Petrovska said they will not wait for an invitation but will leave it to the party president to review the document. Meanwhile, the ruling VMRO-DPMNE told Filipçe that such an SDSM, through his fault, suits the largest governing party and that if he cannot get along with his own membership, how will he be able to make state decisions.