Comment from Daniel Smilov:
This election campaign is becoming more and more scandalous because of the open instrumentalization of state institutions in favor of one party - "The New Beginning" of Mr. Delyan Peevski. The arrest of Jeyhan Ibryamov by the alternative DPS is the last (but only for now) link in the systematic mobilization of the prosecutor's office, offices, magistrates and many other bodies and employees in the same political direction.
The sequence of events
It is important, of course, what are the facts of the various cases, which one day - hopefully - will become clear. But it cannot be denied the indisputable tendency of supposedly neutral state bodies to decide everything in favor of the same party formation (Peev's) and always against its opponents (in this case, the ill-fated alliance of Ahmed Dogan). Here is the sequence of events in the current election situation:
- Police and prosecutor's office took action against Dogan's people in Varna (and other cities) on charges of corruption and crimes. It was like the starting gong of the split in DPS;
- The prosecutor's office suddenly remembered that the so-called Valk (a businessman close to the honorary chairman of DPS) is not servicing a giant loan of 150 million BGN, part of which probably went to Ahmed Dogan himself for the purchase of a port and a power plant in Varna. All the information about the case was known a long time before, but the actions of the institutions started when Dogan lost the umbrella of Delyan Peevski;
- Ahmed Dogan was disgracefully evicted from the Sarai in Rosenets with the help of state institutions again. BNT even makes reports in Sarai with the main purpose of discrediting the "drowning in opulence" Dogan (probably BNT have another, more benevolent explanation for their activity);
- With extremely controversial decisions, in which there is no legal logic, the SAC and the CEC gave the name "DPS" to Delyan Peevski, not to Ahmed Dogan;
- There are continuous criminal-legal actions against activists and mayors of Ahmed Dogan's DPS, the detention of Ibryamov being just one of the examples;
- The Military Prosecutor's Office took action against former members of the DS on the occasion of the "Revival process", after Delyan Peevski announced that he would remove the DS from the DPS...
This institutional activity could even be commendable, if it did not seem to be at the behest and command of Mr. Peevski. And such a call is neither a precedent nor an exception. Ivan Geshev was removed (and appointed) with a similar remote political trigger, Borislav Sarafov was then installed in the same way, the procedure for electing a new chief prosecutor began with a political blessing from the same place, etc. etc. And for the shameful "investigation" of the "KTB" affair by Ivan Geshev is hardly worth recalling, except perhaps his insight that "DP" means "state enterprise".
There are certainly important points left out in the list above, but the purpose here is not to document Mr Peevski's informal influence over supposedly independent offices, bodies and regulators. After all, it is 2024 and we are facing the seventh parliamentary elections in a row (for the last three years) in a Bulgaria that has claims and ambitions to be a European country. Which means that in six previous elections, Mr. Peevski and his partners from other parties were elected and are still in Bulgarian politics.
This scandal is no less than the appointment of Peevski in DANS
What has happened to the sensitivity of the Bulgarians that they somehow do not notice the huge scandal, which in terms of dimensions is no smaller than the appointment of Mr. Peevski to DANS in 2013?
The answers here must be sought in two directions. First, Mr. Peevski is currently attacking Mr. Ahmed Dogan, who himself has few defensive arguments. After all, Mr. Peevski is a product of Mr. Dogan. And the scam with the Wolf and the 150 million, for example, looks like a completely real scam. But Vasil Bozhkova's fraud for 500 million BGN is no less real, but there was a grave institutional silence about it, and even the prosecutor's office remained hesitant between two "equally defensible" and "equally likely" versions - namely, that Vasil Bozhkov went regularly with a lot of money to Vladislav Goranov in the Ministry of Finance and either gave it to him, or took it back to unknown places. The rule of law above all, amen!
Maybe Ibryamov really asked for a bribe, but the point is that the gathering of all the institutional activity of offices and magistrates during the election campaign is a problem in itself. As well as the distribution of crimes and corruption in the DPS is also problematic - it is not logical that all criminals are under Mr. Dogan, and that Mr. Peevski has gathered only "state enterprises" to myself. Such a theory purely statistically cannot stand.
The second argument for the low sensitivity of the Bulgarians at the moment is that Mr. Delyan Peevski was "washed" and "legitimate" from his participation in the management of PP-DP and GERB. It is true that his participation in question went through GERB and Borisov, but the result was that without Mr. Peevski, important decisions could not be made, because GERB would have blocked them. And the disintegration of the "assembly" it happened again according to the joint will of Borisov and Peevski.
This argument has some force, but it is actually deeply hollow and false. According to him, people's anger and punishment should be directed mostly at the PP-DB, who in practice unwittingly coexisted with the problem, and not at the problem itself and its voluntary partners. And when it comes to Ortacs, Mr. Boyko Borisov should be mentioned in the first place, who still wonders what he has in common with Mr. Delyan Peevski. But this theater has overgrown and few people are taking it anymore. And no one has yet heard criticism from Mr. Borisov against Mr. Peevski of any nature and for anything. This is perhaps because of Borisov's good nature, which is manifested both towards ITN and "Vazrazhdane". and to whom not. Only the PP-DB for some reason can't take advantage of it, but that's because they will always take to remind about the Bojkova affair, the house in Barcelona or something. How do you form a coalition in such a non-Orthodox environment?
The premiere of Ivan Kostov's new book
This week, one of the important events was the presentation of Ivan Kostov's new book at the NDK - Testimonies for the transition 2. The book itself is worth reading, both for the documents and first-person testimonies, and for the analytical view of the author. The very presentation of Kostov's books has become a traditional, important event for the democratic community, which through him not only pays tribute to a former prime minister who did a lot for European Bulgaria, but also provides an occasion for stocktaking, analysis of the situation and consideration of future plans. At the current edition of the event, there was a certain disparity between the support-seeking and mobilizing energy representatives of PP-DB, who had come (quite en masse) to pay their respects, and the more minor and pessimistic view of Kostov's country and his new book. In its conclusion, it contains a long lament about the incompleteness of Bulgarian endeavors - from the adoption of Christianity to the present day.
Such heroic generalizations, as a rule, are controversial and rather betray the emotional attitudes and moods of their authors. But it is true that the democratically oriented, European people of Bulgaria even today allow themselves to demobilize at key moments, to "punish" their own representatives and thus leave the country in the hands of real and proven donkeys. Whether a person is a pessimist or an optimist - this is mostly an aesthetic choice, but whatever it is, it should not allow such a development. Because it is the explanation for the incompleteness of some undertakings, despite good and noble intentions.