Struga, 24 May 2024 (MIA) — The new government will promote unity and uniting creative and progressive potential; the people need to unite under the same flag, under the same sky and work for the common future, VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski said Friday in Struga's Kalishta village at a party gathering organized to mark Ss. Cyril and Methodius Day.

"This is a new chapter, where the state is going back to the people, and Macedonia has to have results and strength for great victories," Mickoski said. 

"The new chapter is based on responsibility, morality and values that are the binding credo we need to respect. We will form a new government soon. But forming the government is the easy step. The big steps are the results we have to deliver.

"Many of you here see themselves in different positions, offices and posts, but for me this never represented a ticket to the good life. It is a duty and great responsibility before those giving us this power, the people. 

"Be aware that any of your failures will disappoint the people whose hands we shook in our many years of fighting to put an end to this rule," Mickoski said.

He told future officials to work relentlessly from their first day in office, to solve as many problems as possible, and to be the change that the people needed to immediately see.

Commenting on the oath taken by President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova that had stirred the entire Greek and European public, he said that, in contrast, no one had been stirred by the country's "unprincipled waiting in the EU's waiting room for more than two and a half decades, already having paid high admission fees."

"I am also aware of the objective weaknesses in our institutional potential, the presence of corruption and the acute incapacity of the outgoing goverment to produce results, but Macedonia is paying a high price because of its neighbors' blockades, although we share and deserve the same European dream, which is our common purpose. In this constant waiting, we are losing our dignity. Our self-esteem and collective self-determination also suffer," Mickoski said.

His goal, he said, was to overcome rifts and promote absolute and non-selective responsibility.

"The people know that we live under the same sky," Mickoski said. "Behind me is Lake Ohrid. Its shore has united people of different ethnic and religious affiliations for thousands of years. There is no left or right, the government or the opposition, there is no such thing as a bad or good nation, there is only one, Macedonia, with decent people who deserve happiness."

According to him, the nation will preserve its history "only if we continue the work of St. Cyril and Methodius, only if we ourselves create our chances and fight for unbreakable unity." mr/