Filipche: "Orbán has fallen, now it's Vučić's turn" - the SDSM leader turns Serbia's election into a showdown with Mickoski

Serbia goes to snap parliamentary elections today, and one of the loudest comments yesterday came not from Belgrade but from Skopje. SDSM leader Venko Filipche wrote on the social network X that "tomorrow Serbia votes to free itself from a criminal government" and that the students, after almost two years of uninterrupted peaceful protests, "have managed to reach a chance to change the system".

Then came the heavy artillery. "Vučić is planning to steal the election," Filipche claims, listing irregularities in the voter rolls, ID cards issued to foreign nationals, pressure on public sector employees, controlled and paid voting, and "absolute control of all media". To be precise - these are political accusations by an opposition leader from a neighbouring country, not established facts. Some of the domestic outlets that ran the post noted as much.

Belgrade as a mirror for Skopje

The real addressee of the message, though, isn't in Serbia. "Macedonia knows this picture from the Gruevski era, and today we are witnessing a return to those times," Filipche writes. And then the punchline: "Orbán has fallen. Now it's Vučić's turn. We all know who's next, who is part of that organised criminal group." No names, but the address is clear - Hristijan Mickoski's government.

The post ends with a sentence worth reading twice. Filipche says he wants Serbia and Macedonia to have the best possible relations, "without interference in the internal affairs of the state", and accuses Mickoski of a "subservient attitude" toward Vučić. A message against meddling in someone else's internal affairs, posted the day before the neighbour's election, openly backing one side.

None of this means concern about Serbia's election is unfounded - the student protests are real, and an international mission will observe the vote. But when the leader of Macedonia's opposition uses a neighbour's election as a stage for a domestic fight, the question is simple: is this solidarity with the students in Belgrade, or a campaign that has just changed cities?