"If they try to provoke early elections in Varna, the hoe will come very strongly. Blago Kotsev will win them", warned the chairman of the PP Assen Vassilev in an interview for the program "Politically Incorrect" on the Bulgarian National Radio.
Everywhere where we have mayors and municipal councilors, there is pressure to change their colors, emphasized Assen Vassilev and called the process "strong pressure to control". In his words, the municipal program was "cruelly flawed", and money is given to those who took pictures "under the coat of arms with Peevski".
Asked why Blagomir Kotsev is a cause, and Barbutov in Sofia - not, he explained:
"With Blagomir Kotsev we have a replacement of the vote of Bulgarian citizens, he is not an appointment. When you remove a legally elected mayor of the third largest city, this is an exceptional scandal and an attack on the political system as well."
In his words, both are being detained in the same way for crimes that have no chance of being repeated, nor are "insane relapse".
"We see that vote replacement is underway in Pazardzhik - the entire municipal council is being attacked. By the time the elections come, the old municipal council from the time of the "Borisov 3" cabinet will return. This began with the attempts to remove district mayors in Sofia."
The question is where the CPC enters and how it enters, Vassilev emphasized.
"We have seen absolutely scandalous court decisions. We see double standards even in this case itself. We see how in other cases people who have committed murders, recidivists, are released on bail, under house arrest. Here people with a clean criminal record are kept in custody as a punitive measure. If the court has done something stupid, this stupidity must be pointed out. Whether it should be accepted, Bulgarian citizens will say."
There are panels that clearly do not judge according to the law. We want to empower honest people in these institutions to judge according to the law, and not under pressure that someone puts on them, Vassilev made another comment.
Lachezar Stavrev was asked to testify falsely while they were holding him among bedbugs in order to break him, the PP chairman also said.
One of his explanations for all these attacks is because "they are the ones who hinder them the most" and they have turned off "all their taps". Vassilev sees a purposefully organized attempt to discredit.
"This is an attack on people who hinder them. They tried to crush us politically – they failed. They tried to corrupt us – they failed", concludes Asen Vassilev. He specified that no one had asked for his immunity and qualified the phrase "unknown perpetrator, person with immunity" as "a hoax" in order to keep the case against Blagomir Kotsev in Sofia.
"There is currently a - a woman said somewhere."
This government is extremely harmful. We want this government to stop governing Bulgaria, he declared and requested that in the future they support all
"This is impossible and I don't know why Borisov is talking this nonsense", he replied, when asked if they would become a potential partner for GERB:
"We stated that Borisov, Peevski and I would not govern. The Bulgarian Democratic Party went to some negotiations, Borisov preferred to govern with Peevski. For Borisov's PP, the page is closed. His colleagues from the Bulgarian Democratic Party have also clearly stated that they will not govern with Borisov. Borisov is a good schemer. GERB always tries to create division and break up people who can prevent them from being in power."
If they don't vote, they will get Borisov and Peevski, as they have been getting them so far, he addressed the non-voters. In response to a question whether they can return those who voted for them when they were the first political force - with the assembly of the back and the legitimization of Peevski, Vassilev pointed out that "this part of the narrative is a lie" and argued:
"Peevski set out to seize the state during Stanishev's time, continued during Borisov's time, then deposed Borisov and appointed Oresharski as prime minister. Then, during Borisov's third cabinet, he de facto ruled the state as prime minister. When they put him on "Magnitsky", he hid for about a month, but the court remained his, the prosecutor's office remained his, all the regulators remained his and GERB's, and a large part of the administration remained his and GERB's."
If we had made a compromise, these attacks against us would not have happened. They want to govern with phone calls, we want to govern by law, commented Asen Vassilev about the assembly and its price.
"The constitutional reform that was pushed through was rejected by the Constitutional Court. I don't want to deny these 9 months. The conversation was – we don't know if we will survive as a political party after this assembly, but the most important thing for us is for the eurozone and Schengen to happen. This was put on the table. Now we take it for granted. The eurozone had been put on a big red flag. The assembly was so that these two priorities could happen."
"Foreign Affairs (MFA – ed. note) should go and shoot itself with two bullets. It is not normal for an ambassador to comment on the protests, to give a statement about the protests, but every European citizen can be at every protest. Everyone is welcome to the protest!", the PP chairman also stated in connection with the position of the Foreign Ministry.