VMRO-DPMNE has launched its latest broadside against opposition leader Venko Filipče. According to the party, the SDSM leader is „without red lines" - and relativises the Bulgarian denial of Macedonia while keeping European rhetoric at the same time. Put another way - he's selling a political double game.

The points of the accusation are concrete. First - that Filipče doesn't show a clear position against the Bulgarian claims about the Macedonian nation and language. Second - that his close associates are pro-Russian businessmen. The names VMRO is putting forward - Onishchenko, Borče Markovski and Miodrag Divljević Daka - are people with a long history of allegations about links to Moscow, and with business lines the opposition has been criticising for years.

Manasievski, the spokesperson of VMRO-DPMNE, puts the central question - how can SDSM claim a European orientation if the closest associates of its leader are people with a pro-Russian orientation and questionable business ties? The party argues that this gap between „rhetoric" and „practice" isn't an accident, but reflects a deep contradiction at the heart of Filipče's leadership.

Naturally, SDSM will dismiss all of this as political tactics - and is probably right when it comes to the timing. But the question Macedonian media rarely put loudly is framed differently. What exactly are the financial lines behind the two biggest parties? Where does the campaign money come from? To what extent is Macedonian politics being decided in Vienna, Moscow, Sofia or Brussels - rather than in Skopje?

The question is rhetorical - but the answer is real. Politics without transparent finances is politics where the people, in real terms, have no voice. The whole Balkans know this. But few have the courage to say it out loud - because they themselves take the same money.