"Tens of thousands are protesting in the center of the capital Sofia in mid-July - in front of the Courthouse and the adjacent pedestrian zone on Vitosha Boulevard", the German public media ARD points out in a report from Sofia and explains that the people's anger was provoked by the detention of the mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev.
"What is happening here is absolutely scandalous. They are using the prosecutor's office and the court to settle scores with the opposition. This is reminiscent of Georgia and is disturbing. We do not want this, we live in a European Bulgaria and we want it to remain that way," a woman participating in the protests told the German publication. "Today it is Blagomir Kotsev, tomorrow it will be your turn. Nobody knows why he is in custody. There is no justice", says another demonstrator.
Opposition politicians in custody
The opposition alliance PP-DB won mayoral seats in five of the 265 municipalities in Bulgaria – Sofia, Varna, Blagoevgrad, Pazardzhik and Hitrino.
Along with Kotsev, whose detention resembled an operation against a dangerous criminal, two municipal councilors were also arrested in Varna – also from "We Continue the Change" (PP). The charge against them: participation in an organized criminal group.
Kotsev's lawyer Ina Lulcheva rejects this and sees political motives behind the arrests – the goal is to eliminate the opposition step by step: – – In this case, the laws and the constitution are being grossly violated and this should worry all citizens. Because it is not just about one mayor and a few councilors. This concerns us all", the German publication quotes her as saying.
Problematic evidence
The evidence in the case of Blagomir Kotsev does raise some doubts, the author of the publication Oliver Zoss from the ARD correspondent office in Vienna writes further. The accusation is based only on the testimony of one businesswoman - Plamenka Dimitrova. She is known to be close to GERB - the party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, considered the real corrupt (political) force in the country, which is currently ruling Bulgaria, Zoss points out.
He says that Dimitrova runs a company in Varna, specializing in catering for schools, hospitals and other public institutions. It is alleged that in the past she regularly received public contracts, but under the new mayor from the PP she lost a public contract for the supply of food to a nursing home from another company that offered a 20% lower price, ARD explains the case.
Before the Varna mayor, there was another arrest of a local politician - at the end of June, the deputy mayor of Sofia Nikola Barbutov was detained, ARD further recalls. He was also detained on charges of demanding a bribe. Other such arrests are possible, believes PP activist Krasimira Velichkova. "We have information that over 50 of our municipal councilors from the PP throughout Bulgaria are currently being investigated by various authorities. (…) The most brutal means are being used against free people in Bulgaria to force them to surrender," the German publication quotes her as saying.
The leader of GERB and former long-time head of government Boyko Borisov rejected accusations that the arrests of PP mayors are his revenge against the fighters against corruption. ARD points out that in his usual cynical manner, Borisov stated in this regard: "I am not taking revenge on them. Life is taking revenge on them. He up there - God - is taking revenge on them".
Accusations against the EU
However, the demonstrators in Sofia are convinced that GERB is connected to the arrests of PP politicians. For Georgi Kassabov, a 42-year-old Bulgarian who has lived in Germany for a long time, it is unacceptable that GERB is a fully-fledged member of the EPP, the conservative group in the European Parliament (EP), and that the President of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen is too uncritical of the GERB party.
"When we see in the news that mayors are being arrested in Turkey, I have to say that the same thing is happening in Bulgaria. This is happening in Europe, in the European Union. Why doesn't Mrs. von der Leyen talk to the GERB MPs about what is happening in Bulgaria, what the party is doing and why there is still no rule of law?", Kassabov asks in the ARD report.
Another German publication also draws a parallel with Turkey. According to "Frankfurter Rundschau" What is happening in Bulgaria is very reminiscent of authoritarian Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrested opposition mayors and put them behind bars for alleged corruption crimes. The opposition in Bulgaria accuses GERB and its partners of abusing the "Anti-Corruption Commission" (APC) it controls to silence inconvenient voices. Author Thomas Roser titled his publication "A State Body Under Suspicion".
The Role of an Oligarch
But there is another politician who is not a member of GERB and who is suspected by many Bulgarians of having a hand in the arrests of PP politicians - the oligarch Delyan Peevski, sanctioned by the US and the UK for corruption. He is currently considered the most influential person in the country, the man who pulls the strings behind the scenes, writes Oliver Zoss of ARD. It is alleged that Peevski controls a large part of the judiciary, and that he is aiming for the prime minister's post, the German journalist points out. And until that happens, he is making efforts to undermine the rule of law, ARD also writes.
It remains to be seen what will happen to the arrested mayors, but long prison sentences are not ruled out. "For example, the former Sofia district mayor Desislava Ivancheva has been in prison for seven years for alleged corruption, which she denies", the ARD report from Sofia also says.