Bulgaria’s European Parliament elections: 12 candidates named as former communist secret service agents
Twelve of the candidate MEPs in Bulgaria’s May 25 2014 European Parliament elections were agents of communist-era secret service State Security, according to disclosures by the Dossier Commission.
Of the 12, four are candidates for the Bulgarian Communist Party, a hardline minority party distinct from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, which is effectively successor-in-title to the BCP that imposed a communist regime on the country for decades.
Three are candidates for the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria, a far-right ultra-nationalist party that is a rival to the more established – if arguably equally electorally doomed – Ataka, which has a former State Security agent of its own on its candidate lists.
Nikolai Barekov’s Bulgaria Without Censorship (BWC) coalition with the nationalist VMRO and other minor parties has its former State Security agent, in the form of Krassimir Karakachanov, already named in previous checks by the Dossier Commission.
One of the candidates for the BSP-led Coalition for Bulgaria is former State Security, as is one for the BSP splinter, the ABC movement led by Georgi Purvanov, the former head of state previously identified as having been State Security Agent Gotse.
The former agents who are candidates for the European Parliament in Bulgaria’s May 25 elections are:
Annamaria Ghiuseleva (NFSB), agent Chakarov, sixth department;
Boyan Kirov (Bulgarian Left), agents Kiril and agent Petrov, variously;
Vasil Kolarov (Bulgarian Communist Party);
Evgeni Kirilov (Coalition for Bulgaria), agent Manchev, sixth department;
Krassimir Karakachanov (BWC-VMRO, etc) agent Ivan, sixth department;
Lyubomir Zhelev (NFSB), State Security staff member;
Nako Stefanov (Bulgarian Communist Party), State Security, part-time;
Nikolai Georgiev (ABC), Agent Ivan;
Penio Kostadinov (Bulgarian Communist Party), Agent Kambourov;
Stanislav Stanilov (Ataka), Agent Setlin;
Timur Genov (NFSB), staff member, third department.
The Dossier Commission checked a total of 173 people. A hundred and forty-five were not subject to checking, on the grounds of being too young to have been recruited by State Security, an exception provided for in the law on Dossier Commission scrutiny.
(Photo: Christa Richert, sxc.hu)
