Bulgaria’s 2021 presidential elections: No candidate worked for communist-era secret services, Dossier Commission says
The Dossier Commission, Bulgaria’s statutory body empowered to check people in various walks of public life for affiliation to the country’s communist-era secret services, said that it had found that no candidate in the November presidential elections had worked for State Security or the Bulgarian People’s Army military intelligence division.
There are 23 tickets in Bulgaria’s November 14 presidential elections, meaning 46 people.
The Commission said that it had checked 32 individuals.
Fourteen had not been checked because Article 26 of the law on the Dossier Commission says that those born after July 16 1973 are not subject to being checked. During Bulgaria’s communist era, the secret services were not allowed to recruit people younger than 18.
Even had any presidential candidate been found to have worked for State Security or the military intelligence division of the Bulgarian People’s Army, this would have been no bar to elected public office, because Bulgaria’s constitution does not allow lustration. There have been several elected officials, including former President Georgi Purvanov, who have been shown to have worked for State Security.
Earlier, the Dossier Commission announced, as The Sofia Globe reported at the time, that 57 candidates in Bulgaria’s November 2021 early parliamentary elections had worked for State Security.
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