Bulgaria’s European elections: MRF leader, Peevski will not take up their seats
Movement for Rights and Freedoms leader Mustafa Karadayi and the number two on the party’s European Parliament candidate list, controversial figure Delyan Peevski, will not take up the seats they won in Bulgaria’s May 26 vote for the European legislature.
This emerged on May 29 as Peevski made a rare appearance at the National Assembly, where he registered as present for the day’s sitting. It was the first time that Peevski had come to Parliament since the beginning of 2019.
Peevski told reporters that he would remain a member of the National Assembly.
He said that ALDE, the EU-wide alliance of liberal parties, had had no objections to his candidacy for the European Parliament.
“Those objection were insinuations and are in the heads of the oligarchs and their servants,” Peevski said.
“We do not mislead people and we are sending young and clever people to parliament,” he said.
Bulgaria’s 2019 European Parliament elections are the second successive ones in which Peevski is not taking up the MEP seat to which he has been elected. He did the same in May 2014.
The MRF won three out of 17 of Bulgaria’s MEP seat in this year’s election.
It was Peevski’s subsequently retracted appointment as head of the State Agency for National Security in June 2013, at the time of the “Oresharski” administration, that sparked widely-supported public protests against the government of the time.
Peevski, known for his numerous business interests, retained his National Assembly seat in 2013 after his SANS appointment was retracted, with a Constitutional Court ruling saying that he remained an MP in spite of having taking the oath as head of SANS.
In the May 2014 European Parliament elections, there was a strong vote against the ruling coalition of the time, which resigned in July after the MRF withdrew its support for the “Oresharski” administration.
In the May 2019 European Parliament elections, an objection registered with the Central Election Commission, that Peevski was ineligible to be a candidate because he was not resident in the country, was rejected by the commission.
