“Morality, unity, honor“ (MECH) is a political party in Bulgaria. The party was founded in October 2023 by the former Minister of Youth and Sports Radostin Vassilev in Hall 3 of the National Palace of Culture.
Participates in the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria (2024) and the elections for the European Parliament in Bulgaria (2024).
Regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, the party calls for the immediate suspension of military aid to Ukraine and the adoption of a policy of complete neutrality.
In the elections for the Bulgarian Parliament on June 9, 2024, MECH received 63,992 votes (2.98%). For the European Parliament, the party received 51,076 votes (2.54%).
Who is the chairman of MECH?
Radostin Petev Vassilev is a Bulgarian lawyer and politician. He was elected as a national representative in the XLV, XLVI and XLVII National Assembly of the 15th MIR Pleven. He is the chairman of the legal commission in the XLV National Assembly.
From December 13, 2021, he is the Minister of Sports, taking over from the acting Minister Andrey Kuzmanov. On August 2, 2022, he handed over the post to Vesela Lecheva from Galab Donev's office.
Radostin Vassilev deals with international sports law and doping cases. He has consulted athletes, sports federations and sports clubs.
On October 22, 2023, he established and headed PP MECH.
He is the founder and managing partner of the law firm “Radostin Vasilev”. It is an international law firm specializing in civil, bond, commercial, property, labor, administrative, international private law and arbitration. His activity is related to the provision of legal services in the field of family, inheritance, copyright and tax law.
In the structure of the law firm, there is a "Sports" department, which carries out activities related to sports management and provides legal representation of athletes, clubs and sports federations before various local and international instances, FIFA and the International Court of Sports (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The team consists of professionals in the field of sports law, anti-doping and sports management.
Vasilev has dozens of published articles and commentaries related to the legal regulation of sports at the national and international level.
For several years, he was the chief legal advisor of PFC CSKA, from where he gained public popularity. He is part of the legal team in some of the most difficult years of the “reds“ after 2008 under the management of Alexander Tomov and “Titan”, when dozens of lawsuits were filed against the club.
The lawyer then directs his efforts to the activities of his office. Participated in the defense of the Weightlifting Federation after the serious doping scandal in 2015. He defended football players such as Ivelin Popov, Kiril Despodov, Spas Delev and Ivan Ivanov, as well as badminton players Gabriela and Stefani Stoevi.
In 2017, he got involved in the work surrounding Lyuboslav Penev's candidacy for the president of the BFS. Vasilev is one of the main critics of Borislav Mihailov's administration as president of the Bulgarian Football Union.
Political activity
„There is such a people“
In 2020, he became the founder of the PP “There is such a people” (ITN) with leader Slavi Trifonov. On July 11, 2021, the party won the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Bulgaria, after becoming the second political force in the country on April 4 of the same year. Radostin Vassilev has been nominated in three design offices – two unrealized on “There is such a people” and a coalition with the mandate "We continue the change" before heading the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
On December 13, 2021, ITN officially became part of the ruling coalition in the government of Kiril Petkov, and Radostin Vassilev was elected Minister of Sports. During the coalition negotiations, Vassilev insisted on a complete revision of the ministry and all state-owned companies that have been subordinate to him for a decade.
On June 13, 2022, Vassilev announced his resignation from ITN on the grounds that behind the party leader Slavi Trifonov there are behind-the-scenes interests, and the future of Bulgaria is more important than loyalty to the party. Together with him, ITN and the parliamentary group leave five more deputies. Their decision comes after the withdrawal of ITN from the ruling coalition, which, according to Vassilev, was not previously agreed with the deputies.
Although the six MPs who broke away from ITN, including Vassilev, support the government in a vote of no confidence on June 22, 2022, the vote is successful and the cabinet with Prime Minister Kiril Petkov falls.
„Strong Bulgaria”
In August 2022, Vassilev announced a new political project "Strong Bulgaria". The stated goals of the project are direct participation of citizens in the state government and local self-government, civil control for transparency in the work of the institutions and termination of criminal practices in the administration.
At the same time, Vassilev was announced as the leader of the list of “We continue the change” in Gabrovo for the parliamentary elections in October 2022.
„We continue the change“
On April 12, 2023, Vassilev became a People's Representative from the PP-DB coalition. After a scandalous recording, which he distributed and claimed to be from the national council of “We continue the change”, on May 26, 2023, Vassilev decided to leave the parliamentary group.
However, he remains in the National Assembly as an independent deputy.
SWORD
In October 2023, he founded the party “MECH“ (abbreviated from Moral, Unity, Honor) in hall 3 of the National Palace of Culture (NDK), about 600 people gather at the establishment.
The party participates in Parliamentary elections in Bulgaria (2024) and Elections for the European Parliament in Bulgaria (2024).
He failed to enter the 50th National Assembly, but nevertheless achieved a result worthy of him.