Author: Vildan Bairyamova
"The attacks began back in May - inspections by the National Revenue Agency and all sorts of control bodies with absurd questionnaires like "what cosmetics do your children use". At first I thought all this was normal, but then I realized that the pressure was on about 60 employees and people from business,", Yussein Ahmed tells DV. He is a former deputy mayor with two terms and also a former chairman of the Municipal Council in Kardzhali, now an independent municipal councilor. According to him, what is happening is completely in the style of Delyan Peevski's actions.
"Mayor is Peevski's long arm"
"The dismissals of employees are the work of the mayor of the municipality Erol Myumyun, he is Peevski's long arm, and recently became his deputy in the party. The second wave of the dismissal of municipal employees began when collecting signatures for the registration of the New Beginning - those who refused to support it were accosted and forced to voluntarily leave their posts in the administrations," specifies Yussein Ahmed.
He says that after the elections his wife, a nurse in a kindergarten, was also fired from her job. She was summoned for an official interview with the deputy mayor Vesselina Tikhomirova, who emphasized that she was only a contractor. The couple went together and when asked why the woman was "asked" to submit a resignation letter, the answer was "conflict of interest with the mayor of the municipality and a difference of views". According to Yussein Ahmed, a kindergarten teacher, the wife of another municipal councilor loyal to Dogan - Kadir Mustafov, was also fired under the same scheme. Both Ahmed and Mustafov were expelled from the group of councilors from the MRF, and are now independent. Both were on the list of candidates for deputies from Dogan's wing.
Yusein Ahmed is an electrical engineer, registered with the labor exchange since November 2023. Kadir Mustafov was forced to announce a developed business for sale, he told DW. "I know that most councilors think like us, but fear and the idea of keeping their job and business keep them silent. Among them are those working in structures outside the municipality, but their bosses in the capital receive orders to dismiss them from their posts," says the unemployed father of two children and explains that it happened that he sat down for coffee with one of the municipal officials, and the other's phone rang - the mayor warned him to be careful who he was drinking coffee with.
"Voluntarily" those who left the municipal administrations manage to find work in the private sector, says Yussein Ahmed, but adds that their new employers follow the warning - if they do not fire the people in question, they would be ruined by inspections. Thus, dozens of families with children find themselves without a livelihood. Yussein Ahmed claims that the official phones of mayors of settlements have been disconnected, and during the election campaign they were accused of saying that if they did not vote correctly, nothing would be done for the respective village by the municipal authorities. Garbage collection has been suspended, as well as small projects for patching asphalt and small street sections. Yussein Ahmed also says something else: that the 10-year contract with the tenant Ahmed Mollahasan of the premises where the first meeting of Dogan's loyalists was held was terminated days after the event. At that time, the election headquarters was established in this cafe. The same businessman renovated and furnished Nursery No. 5, but the municipality refuses to pay and there are no children there, says Yussein Ahmed.
On September 2, the director of the Center for Social Rehabilitation and Integration of Persons with Mental Illnesses Pembe Talat was summoned to the municipality, she tells DV. Talat also points out something else: that there she was told in plain text either to voluntarily leave her post or to resign. The reason – does not support Delyan Peevski's New Beginning, and is also the daughter of one of the founders of the MRF and the first municipal leader after the party was founded. She worked for two terms in the regional administration, managed by representatives of different political forces, but for the first time now she is facing an unprecedented removal. "Is this the new model of Bulgaria? The whim of an employer, just because I do not support some New Beginning and sick political ambitions, this is sad and disastrous", comments the unemployed Pembe.
"I have been involved in party activities for 25 years, but I have never heard of such purges and persecutions. This is monstrous, we have returned to the times of the Mutren, you cannot mess with the fate of entire families", wonders Yussein Ahmed.
"These are speculations, I have not forced anyone to leave their jobs. On the other hand, it is normal for me to choose my people, and I have not been the employer of all those who have been laid off," states the mayor of the municipality of Kardzhali Erol Myumyun in response to a question from Deutsche Welle. He also points out that he does not even know the number of those who left voluntarily and that he cannot be responsible for other people's wishes.
Dismissal, arson of a car. "Why right now?"
The mayors of the municipalities of Chernoochene and Dzhebel also embraced Delyan Peevski's new beginning. In Dzhebel, the mayor, Nexmi Ali, is a former MEP from the MRF, and is now a local manager for a second term. Yussein Ahmed says that at the beginning of the first one, however, he announced that he was the mayor only of those who voted for him, and the purge of those who disagreed was carried out even then.
In Chernoochene, the municipal officials quickly succumbed to the fear of unemployment, as well as to the election of their new mayor Aydzhan Ahmed, who also chose Peevski's wing, says Ferhad Ferhad, who was his deputy. Ferhad was fired, and on the evening of December 8, the family car was set on fire - in front of his children and parents, he tells the DG. "For about 20 years, I have been parking my cars outside under the canopy, I have even left the keys, there have been no such attacks so far. I have my suspicions, there is a pre-trial investigation, but why did this nightmare happen right now?", Ferhad seeks an explanation.
He served two terms as deputy mayor under the previous mayor and was appointed as such under the new one after the local elections last year. Ferhad says that the rift in the MRF and the fact that he decided to remain loyal to Ahmed Dogan are throwing him out of his post. The father of two is 43 years old, graduated in finance and public administration at the UNWE, and is now unemployed and relies on money from the Labor Bureau.
"The whole horror happened in front of my 13-year-old daughter and my 17-year-old son, in front of my parents. The arson happened in my yard, the shock is huge," he shares. The children have not attended school for a whole week, the father has arranged therapy with a psychologist. The remains of the burned car were in the yard for days awaiting a second examination by forensic experts. "The situation is insane, brutal, during the campaign in the village of Lyaskovo, our activist was beaten up. Dozens of dismissals followed in Kardzhali, I was removed, and now the arson, but why now", Ferhad asks. His hope is that the perpetrator, but also the guarantor of the crime, will be identified.
Wind of change in the Northeast as well
But it is not only in the Kardzhali region that stories of pressure are heard. There are similar stories from the Northeast as well. Four out of ten municipalities in Shumen region have always been governed by the MRF, and the honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan was on a pedestal. But Delyan Peevski's power turned the tide and they found themselves under his wing en masse, Turhan Karakash tells DV. He is 47 years old, he served two terms as mayor of the Nikola Kozlevo municipality, and until recently as chairman of the Municipal Council. The sudden love for "this boy" made the councilors ambitious and the pressure on him began with all sorts of levers, says Karakaş. He points out that on November 13 this year he was forced to resign - because of his position to remain loyal to Dogan. However, his wife, at the beginning of the election campaign, dared to publish a photo of Dogan on her personal Facebook profile. Thus, under pressure, she said goodbye to her job in the accounting department of the Kaolinovo municipality, says the former mayor. Now both parents of 3 children are unemployed and have no hopes for the future.
Arzu Ahmed also has her own story. She is 25 and was recently elected regional leader of the youth organization of the MRF. She graduated in "Social Activities" at Shumen University and has already changed two jobs. She worked under the "Career Start" program in the municipality of Novi Pazar, and after a year she joined the Labor Office as a specialist. Six months later, the turmoil in the DPS began and the split followed. Arzu Ahmed became the subject of special conversations in which she was persuaded to give up Dogan's faction and that otherwise she would be left without a job, she told DV. "All my relatives suggested to me that the honorable one was already powerless and was no longer a factor. Only my parents left me to decide on my own" she says. She was nominated as a candidate for MP from the municipal structure of the DPS. But only a few days later she learned that all these people had chosen to follow Delyan Peevski.
"So I was left completely alone during the campaign, only the young people helped me. A month after the vote, on November 20, a woman from the Employment Agency in Shumen came and told me: I have a proposal - sign here", says Arzu Ahmed. That's how she was served a dismissal order. Two days later, her personal car had slashed tires and was scraped with a sharp object along its entire length, she says. Is it a crime to have my own choice, why is this revenge, and against a 25-year-old girl, the young woman is indignant. She is convinced that she will not be able to find a new job - just because she did not follow the New Beginning. She can't imagine going to her husband, who is an expatriate in the Netherlands, she wouldn't be able to endure it in a foreign land.
The cases described by Arzu Ahmed, Turhan Karakaş, Ferhad Ferhad and Hüseyin Ahmed are just some of the stories of people who have already lost hope. They show how expensive it can be to stay true to an idea, whatever it may be.