Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
A recording released from the shadows has triggered an avalanche. The audio, which talks about corruption and public procurement in the service of "We Continue the Change" (PP) - and whose authenticity has not yet been officially confirmed - has collapsed several political careers, but the damage will not stop there. The political alliance between the PP and "Democratic Bulgaria" is shaking, the initiative for a common presidential candidate of the democratic community will stall, and the reputational blow clears the ground for a new "savior" - the party project of President Rumen Radev.
Drama - and personal responsibility
The plot is not new. 20 years ago, the leader of the MRF Ahmed Dogan publicly formulated it: “We have a circle of companies - they finance us, we help them”. The scheme “public procurement for a portion” is an unwritten law - and is invisible to the Ministry of Interior, the Prosecutor's Office, ADFI, the Court of Auditors, the National Revenue Agency, which should take care of the conscientious and appropriate spending of public funds. None of them notices the corruption, influence peddling, manipulation of competitions, connections with high-ranking politicians - and as a result, the distortion of competition and the inexplicable enrichment of persons in state and elected positions.
But for the personnel of the PP, the anti-corruption commission showed vigilance as if on order. A thunderous resignation with accusations of corruption pressure from the district mayors, followed by a search of the Sofia Municipality, interrogation and arrest of Deputy Mayor Nikola Barbutov for 72 hours - and finally a recording that caused the resignation of the co-founder of the PP Kiril Petkov. It is assumed that one of the participants in the audio is the mayor of “Lyulin” Georgi Todorov, and the other - Barbutov, already accused of participating in an organized criminal group for crimes against office and bribery together with two others.
The recording mentions specific “our companies“ that “help the party” - for example, they pay for the election campaign of a mayor (Iskar district), and in return they are helped to win orders through detailed explained schemes. The commission - 5-6%, “not like with GERB 20% in advance”. The maintenance of the party's central and regional offices is about 300,000 leva per month, the subsidy is shared with the coalition partner and is not enough, so...
The system functions through selected people who enter the public procurement committees, make the technical specifications and even consult which documents have gaps. Through donations through NGOs to loyal people, the money is directed to the party coffers. The recording names people from the PP, among which stands out that of Ivan Modev, formerly the chief of staff of Nikolay Denkov - as a person aware of the schemes. Modev himself denies having participated in such schemes, and will seek his rights in court.
After the audio, the co-chairman of the PP and its brightest face Kiril Petkov ended politics - he resigned both as party leader and as an MP, with the argument that he takes responsibility for the bad personnel decisions in Sofia. He did it at a press conference at BTA, where he appeared alone, even without his closest ally, friend and now sole leader of the PP, Asen Vassilev. And the “bad personnel decisions” are the mayors of the two largest metropolitan districts “Lyulin” and “Mladost” who left “Promyanata”, as well as two municipal councilors who broke away from the PP-DB group in the SOS.
But the disintegration does not stop there. Four municipal councilors in Dobrich switched to GERB, and today an MP elected with the PP list - Georgi Klisurski, announced that he was leaving the parliamentary group "disappointed and disgusted".
A test for the PP-DB alliance
The scandal strained the already difficult relationships in the PP-DB coalition. Petkov himself saw an attempt to break them up, but did not allow it to come to that. At an unprecedented coalition council for the union, "Democratic Bulgaria" demanded a plan for dealing with it and an internal party investigation to be carried out by "Change". Unlike the PP, which rushed into power with dozens of appointments, the DB limited itself to the ministries of justice and e-government. But regardless of the distance they keep and the declarations that their mayors have “clean hands”, they will also be affected.
The Sofia Municipality is the showcase of the PP-DB in the country, after the resignation of their government, known as the “assembly” due to their alliance with their political opponents Boyko Borisov and Delyan Peevski. In the local elections in the capital, the coalition together with “Save Sofia” won the mayoral post, as well as 24 municipal councilors, of which PP-DB now has only half. There is no majority behind Mayor Vasil Terziev, and decisions and appointments in municipal companies are directed by the so-called “economic majority”, led by GERB.
The Sofia Mayor distanced himself from the scandal and ordered an inspection of the public procurements managed by Barbutov. The recording contains explanations from the man, who is believed to be the deputy mayor, that he personally launched 12 sites, of which one of the mentioned companies took 4, and also names a PP MP (Tatyana Sultanova, ed.), whose husband wanted to work only on renovations and new buildings.
Sofia's budget for 2025 is larger than the budgets of Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Stara Zagora and Ruse, taken together - it exceeds 2.84 billion leva. And renovation is once again a hit among construction companies, just as it was during the rule of GERB and Boyko Borisov - although then only 4% of the blocks were covered against the over a billion leva spent. Now the capital is the leader with the most projects - out of a total of over 200 buildings that are awaiting renovation with 80% co-financing under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan, 126 are its own, and another 23 will receive funding under the national program.
In May, however, district mayors of the PP-DB complained that the Public Procurement Agency was stopping many public procurements for renovation due to “preliminary control”, which is delaying procedures and making it impossible for construction and installation works to be completed on time. But in the next 5 years, significant resources have been provided for renovation – 4.8 billion leva, which will be available to the mayors.
Where does the energy for change go?
Social networks are full of accusations against the PP that they have wasted the energy for change, with odes to the political successes of Kiril Petkov and sad observations that the status quo in the person of Borisov-Peevski has won again. What happened is shrinking the already small liberal space in Bulgarian politics to a besieged island. And the "islanders" are under pressure from moderate or extreme conservatives, often anti-European players.
The vote of no confidence on the topic of corruption, which the PP was considering requesting in July, already sounds absurd. "We continue the change" built its identity on the slogan of zero tolerance for corruption - that is why the blow is so heavy. And when the “new” politicians start to look like the “old” ones, voters turn their eyes to someone newer. It is possible that such a one will emerge while the scandal is still hot - the party project, whose godfather will again be President Rumen Radev. He is also anti-Borisov, and anti-Peevski, and is unyielding for North Macedonia, and talks about social security, and looks like a savior. And the test could be some early elections in the fall.
At the same time, the GERB leader is pharisaically offering the PP-DB to nominate a joint candidate for president of the democratic community - it looks like a gesture of goodwill, but it is not. Because, Borisov explains, a Euro-Atlantic president without GERB cannot happen.
And without the DPS and Peevski, can it…