Of the 3,504 Bulgarian citizens registered in Macedonia, only 210 signed up to vote in today's Bulgarian parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Mickoski expressed mild disappointment: "I'm mildly disappointed that only 250 Macedonian Bulgarians will vote in those elections, when Radev says there are more than 200,000 such people."

The number is devastating for Bulgaria's narrative math. Sofia has claimed for years that hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians live in Macedonia. On paper - 3,504 citizens. At the polling station - 210. The gap between political fiction and reality has rarely been so measurable.

This is an indictment of two narratives: that Macedonia is full of Bulgarians waiting to be liberated, and that Bulgarian citizenship was taken out of conviction rather than interest in an EU passport. 210 voters out of the alleged 200,000 - that's not a statistic, that's an answer.