„I declare in advance that I will vote for Gyurov. The main task of the presidential candidate Gyurov and his initiative committee, because they appear as independent candidates nominated by an initiative committee, is to unite the entire pro-European democratic community in their support. Because in the end this choice will be decided between - figuratively speaking, the East and the West and their supporters in Bulgaria“.
This was stated in „This Morning“ on bTV by Atanas Atanasov, deputy from „Democratic Bulgaria“, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly.
„So the task of the candidates and their initiative committee is to unite the pro-European democratic community, and the political forces, who take a back seat — some call them “rightists“, not just rightists. I hope that efforts will be made to attract, of course, people from the centrist community“, he pointed out.
“Borisov and GERB should state their position - will they have a candidate or not? “Here there is, here there is not“ - I don't know. Some signals seem to be coming that they will not nominate a candidate. But this is the task of the presidential candidate and his initiative committee — to attract GERB voters to their side and as support, and not the nomenclature leadership“, commented Atanasov.
In his words, there is “a heavy concentration of red power“ in parliament: “majority, an independent government, headed by Radev. There should be no presidential umbrella“.
“Because the choice of Yotova — we comment on her qualities — will become precisely this: a presidential umbrella over what the government exercises. This government needs a solid corrective“, pointed out Atanas Atanasov.
When he was leaving the Ministry of Interior system, Georgi Kandev said that he was doing it because he was being prevented from working and did not want to violate his principles.
“Now the candidate for vice president Kandev, who, by the way, performed very well as the acting Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior, has the opportunity in the campaign to explain all these statements of his — who prevented him, why prevented him from working. So he has this opportunity“, pointed out the MP from „Democratic Bulgaria“.
.Reforms in the sector „Security“ and the silencer from „Dragalevtsi“
„I believe that the Bulgarian services should look forward, not go back 35 years. Because what they offer for public discussion — eternal secrets. These secrets that are expiring
now, the statute of limitations — are from 35 years ago and now we have to cover them. What are these secrets from 35 years ago?
And the other very important thing: These are some inherited habits from the time of the State Security — to try to give the services the opportunity to destroy information without civilian control. This should not be allowed, because we have memories from the 90s of what happened to the State Security files“, commented Atanasov.
„Now I will give you an example. Here is this scandalous case with the so-called „silencer“. And I want to ask the services: what information is there about these individuals about whom the Prime Minister went public and stated that this is the top of the mafia and that this silencer - it turned out, according to the prosecutor's office, that there is no silencer. This indicates something else - that there is a failure of the services' operation. Most likely, there is a leak of information because someone was in a hurry to remove it.
„I ask directly - were these so-called Ami and Taki agents of the services for many years, or were they objects on which there was operational coverage? Is there a risk that with these amendments to the law, everything related to the activities of these individuals will be destroyed?“, asked Atanas Atanasova.
„But this is a specific case. We have a very serious problem with the system for security in Bulgaria. I will give you two examples. In August, an in-depth study was published in a magazine, “French Express“, where a large number of former and current heads of security services in Europe were interviewed over a period of three months. Bulgaria is at the bottom. Zero points.
This means that we are not a reliable ally in this complex situation in which we operate. The study states — that the Bulgarian services are unreliable, as there is a risk of information leaking to Russia.
This is a very serious risk for security in Europe in general, for coordination between services, and this is a big problem for Bulgarian services to receive reliable operational information. There is no trust in the leadership“, commented Atanasov.