Shortly after we heard the two coveted “yes” from Strasbourg and Brussels, the Anti-Corruption Commission in Bulgaria stormed the Varna city hall. GERB leader Boyko Borisov expressed disappointment with the events, which he said had “put a spoonful of tar in the honey pot“.
The Sofia City Court remanded in custody the mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev, the municipal councilors from “We Continue the Change” Yordan Kateliev and Nikolay Stefano, and the businessman Ivaylo Marinov. The four are accused of participating in an organized criminal group for accepting bribes and laundering money.
Atanas Atanasov, chairman of DSB, part of the PP-DB coalition, commented on the latest events on the program “120 Minutes“.
“In parallel with the efforts of the institutions to lay the last brick in our European membership, another process was underway – a special political operation was carried out to eliminate the political opponent – PP-DB“, he said.
And he explained why, in his opinion, the efforts are directed only at “We continue the change“:
“Because they have more representatives in the local government. The mayors of Varna, Pazardzhik, and Blagoevgrad are theirs and they are becoming a convenient target of these operations“.
“Very recently, we from DSB, together with PP and DB, held a round table to prepare for the presidential elections. People associated with the democratic community ended up at this round table and in general we drew up a plan for how our political force, with public support, could win the presidential elections. This round table unleashed this attack – people from the status quo were worried that they might have a very solid opponent against them who, by winning the presidential elections, could change the way the country is governed, and these attacks began“, Atanasov also said.
According to him, they have not yet chosen a candidate for the presidential race.