The water in Gostivar was contaminated with faeces. That is the fact. Everything else happening around it this week is politics - and both sides are playing it as though this were not something people actually drank.

The government's version

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski dismissed the opposition's criticism as part of a political strategy. His main objection concerned one name missing from SDSM's statements.

„I am puzzled as to why the first person to be called in this case, the mayor of the Gostivar municipality, simply never turns up in SDSM's statements. When I say ‘puzzled’, I mean it ironically, because of course the same political party will not mention him, given that it backed him at the local elections,” the prime minister said.

He noted that the competent body is the public utility company, that the investigation by the prosecution and the interior ministry is still under way, and that three people are in custody so far, with others possibly included if responsibility or involvement is established.

Mickoski described the government's response with a word that became a small dispute of its own: „This government acts. The first moment it received such a report, it acted: it carried out a robust operation, cleaned out the system and returned it to the competence of the Gostivar municipality and into the hands of the utility company.”

He added that there had been earlier reports of poor water quality in Gostivar, but also in Prilep, Kruševo and other municipalities - and asked why nobody filed criminal complaints then.

The opposition's version

SDSM replied with sarcasm instead of a document. Their statement mocks the prime minister on his return from an official visit to Belgium: that he is „the best at everything: economy, tourism, aviation, technology, education and IT”, that on day one he had „a million topics” to make up for lost media time, that „there has never been better cleaning”.

It is well-written mockery. But mockery is not a document, not a finding, and not an answer to the question of who let that water into the system.

What is missing on both sides

If the water was contaminated with faeces - and it was - then a report exists that established it. There is a date when it was produced. There is a date when it reached the responsible authorities. And there is a period between those two dates in which people kept drinking it.

Those dates are the story. Not the irony about the mayor, not the jokes about the trip abroad.

One side wants the mayor named. The other wants the minister named. A Gostivar resident who wants to know whether they can give their child tap water will find that answer in neither statement.

The three people in custody and the ongoing investigation are the only real point in this whole story. If it ends with names and dates, this was a genuine case. If it ends with a quiet closure, this was just another cycle in which two parties traded sentences over one contaminated pipe.