Bulgaria’s 2024 elections: Struggles continue in MRF, BSP

Sofia: Bulgaria’s three-day Unification Day long weekend from September 6 to 8 is hardly likely to provide a respite from the political high drama ahead of the country’s October early parliamentary elections.

As The Sofia Globe reported earlier, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has given the rival factions of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) until 5pm on September 7 to show that their respective intentions for coalitions for the elections do not include the MRF itself.

Bulgarian law does not permit a political party to be registered in more than one coalition in the same election.

Delyan Peevski, who intends a coalition called “Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning” said on September 5 that he did not accept the CEC decision.

Peevski described the CEC decision as “criminal” without saying which particular law it supposedly violated.

He alleged that CEC head Kameliya Neikova had ties to a political party that is intended to be part of the coalition to be formed by the Ahmed Dogan faction of the MRF.

There would be a “new beginning” “no matter how difficult it is for all the oligarchs, mafia thieves in Bulgaria, and Moscow and Putin,” said Peevski, who is subject to sanctions by the US and UK for what those two countries have described as significant corruption.

Timur Halilov, an MP who is among the Dogan loyalists expelled from the MRF parliamentary group, said on September 5 that Peevski had been expelled from the MRF and did not speak on behalf of the MRF.

“We expect the authorities to do their job. There is one MRF and we have done everything necessary to register it,” Halilov said.

The reformist Da Bulgaria party has called on acting Prosecutor-General Borislav Sarafov to ask the National Assembly to remove Peevski’s immunity as an MP from prosecution, following allegations made to Parliament by fugitive banker Tsvetan Vassilev.

Vassilev detailed several allegations involving racketeering by Peevski and serious irregularities involving the now-defunct Corporate Commercial Bank that Vassilev headed before its collapse.

According to Peevski, Vassilev “is an agent of Moscow and Russia, who is hiding in Serbia under Moscow’s protection”.

GERB-UDF leader Boiko Borissov said on September 5 that the “break-up of MRF is dangerous because there are many Bulgarian Muslims on both sides”.

Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), similarly strife-torn between its acting leadership and former leader Kornelia Ninova – expelled from the party on September 1 – issued a statement on September 5 saying that the Sofia City Administrative Court had confirmed a CEC decision registering acting leader Atanas Zafirov as representing the BSP for Bulgaria coalition.

The decision came as the BSP was signing a coalition agreement with a number of minnow left-wing parties to stand together in the October 27 elections.

The CEC decision had been appealed against by Ninova and two of her allies, Ivan Chenchev and Georgi Svilenski, who were expelled from the party along with her.

Reacting on September 5, Chenchev and Svilenski said that they would appeal against the Sofia court’s decision. They said that in any case, the court’s decision applied only to the existing BSP for Bulgaria coalition, not to “future coalitions”.

In a separate political development on September 5, the We Continue the Change party, Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria party and the Da Bulgaria party signed a coalition agreement to stand on October 27 with the name We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria. This is the name of the current parliamentary group that has stood together in previous recent elections.

“We stand behind one common goal: Development of Bulgaria as a fair country with a competitive innovative economy, a high standard of living and decreasing inequality – a country with an educated, healthy, creative and solidary society of free and equal citizens,” WCC-DB said.