Bulgaria’s anti-government protesters vow to re-erect tent camps
One of the groups of organisers of the protests in Bulgaria demanding the resignation of the government and the Prosecutor-General has vowed to re-erect the tent camps that had blocked some key intersections in Sofia, issuing the pledge hours after police removed the tents in an early morning operation.
On August 7, the 30th day of anti-government protests in Bulgaria, police removed the tent camps in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and on the Stara Zagora – Haskovo road near the Trakiya Motorway.
It remained unclear who had made the decision to remove the tent camps.
Valeri Simeonov, leader of the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria, a minority partner in the government, said that the decision had been made at an August 6 meeting of the government coalition council.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB party said that as far as he knew, this was not true, and the decision had been made by the Interior Ministry.
Protest organisers the “Poison Trio” – Arman Babikyan, Nikolai Hadzhigenov and Velislav Minekov – called for a “revolt against Borissov’s dictatorship”, asking people to gather at 8pm on August 7 outside the Cabinet building to put up barricades again.
Babikyan said in a video address online: “We will not stop, we will not conclude. That which has begun will continue…Borissov is hiding. Fear has its ugly face and today we saw it again”.
Borissov told a GERB national meeting on August 5 that he would propose to the government coalition partners that he steps down as Prime Minister while leaving the Cabinet in place. The following day, Simeonov said that the coalition council had decided that Borissov would remain in place as PM and the government would serve out its term, until scheduled parliamentary elections in spring 2021.
(Photos: Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry press centre)
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