they have ever signed any agreements, claiming that the May Manifesto was a communist forgery. Shortly after, Alexandrov was assassinated in unclear circumstances, when a member in his cheta shot him on 31 August 1924 in the Pirin Mountains. He was survived by his wife, Vangelia, his son (Alexander) and his daughter (Maria Aleksandrova, later Mrs Maria Koeva) was a strong proponent of her father's ideals and IMRO's charter. View about the Macedonian Question IMRO and Alexandrov himself aimed at an autonomous Macedonia, with its capital at Salonika and prevailing Macedonian Bulgarian element. He took into consideration the decomposition of Greece and the incorporation into the autonomous Macedonia of the Macedonian territory which was under the Greek dominion. The part of Macedonia which was in Bulgaria was also foreseen to be incorporated into the autonomous Macedonia. His view does not indicate any doubt about the Bulgarian ethnic character of Macedonian Slavs then. Controversies in North Macedonia 2008 monument controversy A local association of Bulgarians raised a monument of the revolutionary on 2 February 2008 in the city of Veles. After the local administration refused to provide a place for the bust it was raised in the yard of a local Bulgarian resident, Dragi Karov. The following night Karov received a number of threats and the monument was twice thrown down by unknown individuals. Soon after, the monument was removed at the insistence of local authorities, as an unlawful construction. This incident caused Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov to call upon the Macedonian government to review the history of Alexandrov's deeds on his meeting with Branko Crvenkovski in the town of Sandanski. 2012 monument controversy In June 2012, a new statue called “Macedonian Equestrian Revolutionary” was erected in Skopje. As a consequence, an outcry among older residents erupted almost immediately when they noted the anonymous rider’s similarity to the historical figure. The statue was reportedly commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, but this was in question. The Ministry called the statue “the complete responsibility of the municipality of Kisela Voda (the City of Skopje)”. The city government denied this. Attempts to reach a spokesperson at the Ministry of Culture for comment have thus been unsuccessful. Earlier the same month the opposition Social Democrats took to the streets to protest the changing of hundreds of street names, including a bridge that was to be named after Aleksandrov. Finally in October, a few months