141 communist-era State Security agents among Bulgaria’s candidate MPs
Bulgaria’s Dossier Commission has identified 141 agents and employees of the communist-era State Security secret service among the candidate members of Parliament in the country’s May 12 2013 elections.
The commission checked 4145 people who are competing, on the tickets of various parties and coalitions, for the 240 seats in Bulgaria’s National Assembly, the unicameral Parliament.
A number of those identified had been announced before when the Dossier Commission checked other categories.
Bulgarian-language site Mediapool noted that the percentage of State Security people in the candidates’ list for the 2013 elections was significantly lower than in the previous national parliamentary elections in Bulgaria in 2009.
Among those identified was George Ganchev, a failed presidential candidate several years ago, now on the ticket of a party unlikely to win any seats. Somewhat unimaginatively on the part of his handlers, his State Security codename was “George”.
Another named was a psychologist, second on the list of the Bulgarian Socialist Party-led Coalition for Bulgaria in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Bourgas: Hristo Monov was State Security agent Gogov.
The Dossier Commission said that it did not check 3160 of the total 7305 candidates because they did not meet the criteria for checking – customarily meaning that they were too young to have been eligible for recruitment.
Of parties seen as having certain to reasonable chances of getting into the 42nd National Assembly after the May 12 elections, all five had State Security or military intelligence agents or employees: Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB had six, Sergei Stanishev’s Bulgarian Socialist Party-led Coalition for Bulgaria 15, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, 16, including its leader Lyutvi Mestan (“Agent Pavel”), Volen Siderov’s ultra-nationalists Ataka had four and Meglena Kouneva’s Bulgaria for Citizens, two.
State Security was well-represented in several parties seen as unlikely to get into Parliament: notably (and in this case, perhaps not surprisingly) the Union of Bulgarian Communists, and the Bulgarian Left; State Security people also numbered six in Yane Yanev’s Order Law and Justice party, and in other unelectable parties, such as LIDER, Gorda Bulgaria and a motley scattering of left- and right-wing parties, not excluding “Bulgarian Spring”, a so-called party of the protesters.
(Photo of Parliament: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
