Group announces split from Borissov’s GERB party
A group, said to include members of the executive committee of Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB party, has announced that they are “phasing out” their membership of GERB and will work on a new political project.
It is not clear how many people are involved in the group, which according to its July 7 2013 statement has members of the previous and current Parliament and provincial and municipal co-ordinators of the party.
One of the signatories of the statement is a former GERB member, Emil Dimitrov, who was expelled from the party and subpoenaed by prosecutors in April in connection with an alleged vote-buying scheme.
At the time, Dimitrov blamed his fate on GERB deputy leader and former interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and on Iskra Fidossova, a senior GERB MP in the 41st National Assembly.
Other signatories to the declaration on July 7 were Ivan Petrov, Pavel Dimitrov, Nedyalko Nedyalov and Konstantin Hadzhigaev.
The statement said that in recent years, GERB had been controlled by people who do not possess all the moral, political and professional qualities required and expected by society. “Consequently, the cause of GERD has been compromised.”
The party/s stated principles and objectives for open government transparency and ethics in politics had been overridden and replaced with the pursuit of private interests. The party was used as a launchpad for appointments to positions of power and gain.
“We reached a situation in which a person against whom charges have been lodged over serious crimes continues being deputy chairperson of the CEDB and is presented as a touchstone of honesty and uprightness,” the statement said, in an apparent reference to Tsvetanov, who is facing charges of unlawful conduct in relation to eavesdropping while he was a cabinet minister.
Dimitrov said that in coming days, the identities of those who would be leaving would become clear. These included former cabinet ministers, he said.
GERB first entered Parliament in 2009, winning the largest single share of seats and forming a minority government that remained in power until March 2013, after Borissov resigned as prime minister after protests in Sofia saw a violent incident.
In the May parliamentary elections, GERB won the largest single share of votes, but less than in 2009, and had no allies in Parliament with which to form a government. In recent weeks, it has been boycotting Parliament, saying that it would attend only if amendments to electoral laws were being discussed.
(Photo: gerb.bg)
