The administration of Simeon Saxe-Coburg and Sergey Stanishev brought the mafia to power in Bulgaria. This is the real reason why this taking away of power from the hands of the people and its concentration in the hands of a small group, which gradually increased its influence over the political parties, took place. A very sad and unpleasant process.
What I am pointing out is that none of the crime researchers saw that a key factor in this happening was that the political class itself stopped fighting organized crime. He turned his attention to domestic crime and all these things happened.
This is what Ivan Kostov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 1997 to 2001, said before BNR, who presented his new book "Testimonies for the transition 2000 - 2009".
"There is a proven total blindness of the police and the prosecutor's office regarding the mafia war that has raged very hard since 2002. This is shown by their own actions and their own words of these institutions. It turned out that they did not see at all that the main enemy of the state is organized crime, which mobifies it.
The former prime minister pointed out that throughout the period covered in his book, the role of State Security was huge:
"Especially after 2001, when Simeon of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha persistently tried to appoint to a key position in the security sector, Gen. Brigadier Asparuhov makes clear how important the DS is and how they exercised power in the country - both during the Saxe-Coburg government and during the triple coalition with Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev. It weakened their attention so much that they allowed all of them to be eliminated in the 2009 elections... After 2009, DS involvement in the hidden state decreased significantly and people from organized crime took up residence there. This is evident at the moment from the way in which the backstage tramples the authority of all state institutions. They are in bulk".
In the show "12+3" Ivan Kostov emphatically emphasized that "it is not the job of a politician to point or to blame". and added that if 35 years after the beginning of the transition we have not learned this, "then we still do not know how the state functions":
"This is the work of the prosecution, the investigation and the judiciary. The job of a politician is to work for the good of the people - for their security and for their well-being. The data we had (during the administration from 1997 to 2001) we gave to the prosecutor's office. And with that, the process on the part of the politicians ends - it stops where the prosecutor's office begins to act or not act".
Time is a litmus that shows the truth, Ivan Kostov also said and specified that time shows who is right and who is wrong.
He shared that everything that happened to him was not worth it for him personally, but it was worth it for the people, "because at the moment Bulgarians are living better than ever - at the moment we are at 62% of the average level of well-being in the EU":
"A politician cannot go into politics without feeling that he is serving the people and is ready to do anything for them. Maybe it's a bit of an idealized idea, but it can't be otherwise. One must work for others.
Kostov was categorical that "everything that Bulgaria has experienced so far, the Bulgarian voters asked for it with their vote":
"They voted to keep their country as it is now. They do it because they choose their political representation.
I will fulfill my civic duty and I won't get tired, it doesn't cost me anything to go vote, Ivan Kostov declared and called on everyone to do so.