In Pazardzhik, GERB collapsed like the Tower of Babel. It was "eaten" by Peevski's controlled vote – he took away their influence brokers who worked for the New Beginning, says Velislav Velichkov from "Justice for Everyone".
Mr. Velichkov, the local elections in Pazardzhik created a cataclysm that has been going on for a week now. Were you from "Justice for Everyone" there because you perhaps had a premonition that this would happen on election day?
I definitely felt that these elections, although partial – only for municipal councilors in one of the not-so-large electoral districts, are more than likely to be falsified. Because if someone wants to subordinate all three branches of government in the state and speaks of it with a capital D, they are leading it towards a dictatorship, which for now may still be with a small D, but with a tendency to grow. However, the person with the capital D has no electoral potential to win either parliamentary or even local elections, outside of the municipalities strictly subordinate to him or where the mayors took pictures with him under the coat of arms and sold out to the DPS-New Beginning. And Pazardzhik is one of the two most important districts for him, and it was clear that he would try at all costs to demonstrate his strength and achieve not only first place, but also to fight for an independent majority in the municipal council.
Why is the municipal council in Pazardzhik so important to him, where he has not had a single councilor so far?
Peevski already has greater ambitions
While he had not yet usurped the party from his “informal father” Ahmed Dogan, Delyan Peevski sought to achieve influence within the MRF, and outside of it to tighten his ties with Boyko Borisov in order to exercise power behind the scenes. But after he usurped it and turned it into his New Beginning, he already has ambitions to subjugate the entire political terrain, including Borisov himself. And it was precisely in the district where he had always been elected that he wanted to show that he had supremacy over everyone. To this end, with the help of the former four-term mayor Todor Popov - strongly his man until now - he had to take control of the municipal council and put his own chairman in order to subordinate the mayor Petar Kulenski - one of only four mayors of regional cities from the PP/DB. If he had succeeded, Kulenski would surely have fallen victim to the same scenario in which his colleague from Varna has been in custody for more than 100 days, and the Sofia mayor is under constant fire, with one of his former deputies being in custody until a few days ago.
What prevents this from happening now?
When the Municipal Council cannot overturn the mayor's decisions and consolidate a majority that can work against him and send fabricated signals, it is much more difficult to attack him. Here in Varna - all the councilors around former mayor Portnih, as well as those of “Vazrazhdane“ formed a business majority in the Municipal Council and the suspicion is that the attack against Blagomir Kotsev was ordered by certain business groups precisely through the Municipal Council and carried out by Peevski's people through his subordinates, the CPC and the prosecutor's office. This could have happened in Pazardzhik as well, if Peevski and Todor Popov had 30-40 councilors, and only Metodi Baykushev would have remained in Blagoevgrad, who is not yet under attack.
Can you paint a “live” picture of the election day - what suggested that the elections were not fair?
It was visible that there was massive vote trading and concentration of controlled votes on the part of Peevski's people and former mayor Todor Popov, who, notice, played with four different lists for councilors. In addition to VMRO-BND, where he himself participated, and the "Freedom" party, which received 10%, the "Gergyovden" movement, where he was his former deputy, as well as, surprisingly, the MIR party with pro-Russian and pro-Radevsky leanings. Popov himself said that they decided to expand the fan and come up with several lists, which is a deception towards the voter, because it conceals their common interests and dependencies. As a result, Peevski and Popov do not have enough votes to form a majority of 21 councilors, unless GERB and BSP join the Peevski coalition.
And why wouldn't they join to return the gesture of support to him at the national level?
The GERB periphery was “eaten“
Unlike Peevski, who is not interested in public opinion and attitudes, because he holds the minority and controlled vote anyway, GERB and BSP have a lot to lose in electoral terms. GERB in Pazardzhik with these 6% and in huge sections with zero or 1-2 votes collapsed like the Tower of Babel. Obviously, the GERB periphery was “eaten“ by Peevski's controlled vote – he just took their influence brokers and intermediaries and they worked for the New Beginning.
How does this look on the ground?
Velislav Velichkov: When we went on Sunday at half past ten in the morning, we had decided to exercise civil control specifically in the villages - none of us are party members. There we saw masses of people being herded like sheep and literally shoving them into the polling stations as if Japanese stuffers in the subway were literally shoving them into the polling stations. They didn't know what they were voting for - for parliament, president or councilors, but they knew the ballot numbers perfectly well and some people were writing them down in notebooks - this one got fifty, that one got a hundred... There was a perfect organization, as it was in two parts - first, those who are under control - vote, and second - those who are not under control or for some reason have not been paid, they are stopped from voting.
How do they stop them?
Velislav Velichkov: That's exactly what we saw in Ognyanovo. Three cars with Stara Zagora, Plovdiv and Blagoevgrad registrations blocked the road for more than three hours in one of the neighborhoods to the center and the polling stations. Luxury cars - white and black Porsche and Audi, a third Porsche appeared in Malo Konare, they were also spotted in Hadzhievo. In these villages, they had hardly seen a Porsche at all, and now in one day - three, which is probably a desired demonstration of force, so that no one dares to disobey. Then, about a dozen people appeared from the cars in Ognyanovo, who, as Peevski said, are afraid of people. I personally asked the people around me if they had voted and they answered that they had not and that they probably would not succeed. Then they intervened from "Velicie" and blocked the cars with their own cars - the white Porsche got away, but the black one and the Audi could not. The scandal grew and the national televisions came, there was also a journalist from German television, because of which the distribution groups dispersed as if on command and the mass flow of voters simply stopped. The sections remained empty and this prevented Novo nachlaso, and perhaps also the former mayor Popov with his lists, from reaching the necessary number of councilors.
The police abdicated from responsibility
By the way, from the actions of the RDVR it was clear that instead of keeping the people in the cars, they were trying to hide them. They did not want to identify them, until the last they refused to open the trunks and a bag, in which it finally turned out that there was 5,000 leva. Then we heard that they were for personal needs - I do not know who and why goes to the Roma neighborhood in Ognyanovo on Sunday on election day with such an amount in their pocket. Just because there were a lot of cameras and journalists and three deputies who came to the scene - one of them even became a surrogate, they were forced to check the documents of the people in the cars and to examine their bags. It was a public secret that 50 leva was paid per vote and with these 5000 leva they could have secured the votes of 100 more people. But the police refused to open a pre-trial investigation, refused to conduct real actions of search, seizure and securing evidence, and there were many of them. In practice, they abdicated from responsibility and released the people long before the end of election day. And as you can see, as a result, the head of the RDVR-Pazardzhik was dismissed from his post, who turned out to have resigned himself, but still even GERB decided that this behavior could not remain without consequences and in order for Minister Daniel Mitov or the Secretary General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who is particularly loyal to Peevski, not to be outraged, the head of the RDVR-Pazardzhik had to be outraged. This is de facto an admission that, to put it mildly, the police did not do their job.
How can we be sure that these Porsches were sent precisely by Novo nachlaso and that they bought votes in Pazardzhik at all? Their spokesmen will probably say that this is the work of the PP/DB, as they traditionally accuse the one who accuses them of the same thing, but much more aggressively.
Velislav Velichkov: It is quite easy to answer this question. When the ballot boxes were opened, it turned out that in the Roma neighborhoods there were sections with 95% for New Beginning. I personally saw a section in which out of 280 who voted – for New Beginning there were 195, 15 for PP/DB and 0 for GERB. In the neighboring section 3 votes for PP/DB and 1 vote for GERB, everything else was distributed between New Beginning and the lists of the former mayor. And so on. We trust the obvious because we are not an investigative body and we cannot look for evidence as in a criminal trial.
Is the risk of sole rule becoming too great?
But it is more interesting whether the regional crisis with the elections in Pazardzhik will cause a national political crisis and a reformatting of the government or the majority that supports it. If this happens, then we are in the most important and dangerous match for democracy, in which the risk of Delyan Peevski's sole rule becomes too great. And Borisov is no longer able to oppose him in any way to guarantee himself at least minimal independence, and seeing what happened to Ahmed Dogan, he imagines what could happen to him too. Because, since today there are 6% in Pazardzhik, it is not difficult to calculate that in the national elections it is possible that it will not pass even 10% - as much as the electoral weight of GERB outside the bought and controlled vote, already completely managed by Peevski in favor of his New Beginning.
Adv. Velislav Velichkov talks to Georgi Lozanov.