Many politicians in Bulgaria made a career on the back of the undefeated mafia. Ivelin Mihailov will not be the last. After "Majesty" did not enter parliament with his 3.999%, he declared the vote rigged. What's next?
Many Bulgarian politicians made a career on the back of the undefeated mafia and Ivelin Mihailov will not be the last. The informal leader of "Majesty" - because the party formally has another, organized a second protest in Sofia against the bought vote and "because of the death of democracy". The first gathered representatives of "Majesty" and to the BOEC civil movement, after the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced the final results of the vote on October 27.
"Majesty" remained below the 4 percent threshold for parliament with its result of 3.999%. The stumbling block turned out to be about thirty votes - and they gave reason to sympathizers and those who are not supporters of Mikhailov's populism to suspect electoral fraud. We recall the words of GERB leader Boyko Borisov on election night that with nine parties in the 51st parliament there is no way to form a government. It is also recalled the fact that with processed 99.71% protocols, "Majesty" had 4.01%.
"The Establishment" against "The Resistance"
Suggestions rained down, which can be summed up like this - the system parties agreed to deprive the small anti-system formation of political representation, which otherwise confuses their accounts. The result is that the executive director of the Historical Park, Ivelin Mihailov, also considered an ideologue of the party, took advantage of the position of victim of the "mafia" to declare the election a fraud - and lead the Resistance. Thus, to the accusations of massive vote-buying and controlled voting, those of "Greatness" for "adjustment, exchange of protocols and agreement between the parties represented in the parliament who gets how many votes".
"Majesty" will demand the counting of the elections, parallel counting and verification of the election results, Mihailov announced.
The Electoral Code stipulates that any party, coalition or independent candidate has the right to challenge the election results by filing a complaint with specific grounds for violations within 7 days after the announcement of the final results. "Majesty" it can do so, and if the court finds the evidence strong enough, it can order a recount in specific sections or for the entire electoral process in a particular area.
Ivelin Mihailov gets a chance to present evidence to the court about these "thousand violations that we have proven by "Velichie". The figure became known from his interview in the podcast "Bulgarian Civil Forces". of Emil Rusanov, who lives in London. Serious violations were also revealed by the media, as well as video surveillance from sections where committee members voted instead of... the voters. On Nova TV, the sociologist Parvan Simeonov admitted that "Greatness" may win in court given the ballot counting scandals. "I do not believe that the dropping of the party "Greatness" by the National Assembly is something different from a political decision", he also said.
But Mihailov's political rival - the leader of "Vazrazhdane" Kostadin Kostadinov, whom the ideologist of "Greatness" calls a "cocker spaniel", says otherwise. "There are sections in which, except for Peevski and for "Greatness" no votes for another. That's why I say that Peevski pushes "Greatness" to the parliament. They lie that there are no votes for them in many sections, and that is not true," claims the chairman of the pro-Russian party, once a like-minded person with Mihailov.
Who will request checkout
With vote counting, it will be significantly more difficult. In order to be referred to the Constitutional Court (CS), the votes of one fifth of the deputies are needed, that is - 48. Until the constitution of the new parliament, the current 50th is active and deputies from the disintegrated parliamentary group of "Majesty" they can turn to the other groups in the National Assembly for support. But they are unlikely to get it.
Bozhidar Bojanov from the "Yes, Bulgaria" party, part of the PP-DB, commented on Facebook that "disputing the result carries the risk of destabilization, and Peevski is best at fishing in murky waters." Only the Kremlin services can make better use of it. It also creates future destabilization scenarios through hybrid campaigns." According to him, networks and mechanisms of influence can be removed by political action. His fellow party member Ivaylo Mirchev wrote on the social network that he would support any request with attached evidence, "but the bought and controlled vote is deterred before, not after, the elections". That's why from "Yes, Bulgaria" have acted before the vote.
The rest of the political forces remain silent on the persistent calls of BOEC and "Majesty" for counting the elections.
"Resistance will flood the world"
Until now, the head of state Rumen Radev has not commented on the elections, he promised to do so today. Will he criticize their honesty? This would mean admitting that it was in vain that Kalin Stoyanov persisted in not being interior minister, because of which the official project cabinet of Gorica Grancharova failed, and the position was subsequently taken by Atanas Ilkov. But he wouldn't miss the moment to slap another slap on parliamentary democracy because of the hogwash in the elections.
And Ivelin Mihailov will move the Resistance against the "mafia", create a shadow government, new media, flood Europe and the world, including Russia and China, with evidence - since "Majesty" they have records of people who share who bought votes for GERB and for Peevski's DPS in different districts.
But he is not right to claim that everyone is against "Majesty", not even the prosecution and DANS. The prosecution has terminated almost all pre-trial proceedings against Ivelin Mihailov, DANS had data that he worked with the Russian patriotic club "Night Wolves". - but they kept them to themselves. And to top it off, the Varna prosecutor's office initiated pre-trial proceedings for possible financial fraud against the vlogger Lyubomir Zhechev for his film describing the schemes related to the Historical Park. However, the fate of the report sent 3 months ago to the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Finance by the temporary commission in the 50th NA, which inspected the attraction, remains unknown.
And after years of state structures have preferred not to act on reports against Ivelin Mihailov and his schemes, they are in tacit agreement with everything he does. "The fighters against the mafia" must be maintained.
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This comment expresses the author's personal opinion and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and DV as a whole.