MRF founder Dogan on Peevski: ‘The boy has already gone too far’

In a video posted on Facebook, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) founder and honorary president Ahmed Dogan says of Delyan Peevski: “The boy has already gone too far. There is no turning back for him. As well as for us, there is no going back”.

The video was posted on the night of August 28, a day after it was announced that the central operational bureau of the MRF had decided to expel MRF co-leader and parliamentary leader Delyan Peevski and MPs loyal to Peevski from the party.

Filmed at a meeting at Dogan’s Rosenets residence, the video shows Dogan saying: “It was high time for this to happen,” referring to the expulsions.

Dogan had called on June 10 for Peevski to step down from his leadership posts, a call that Peevski rejected.

In the video, Dogan said that the expulsions of Peevski and the others had been what all of Bulgaria had been expecting.

Peevski has rejected his expulsion as “unconstitutional” but Dogan said that “only the central council is the guillotine in such cases”.

Dogan said that those who had claimed that their expulsions were illegal had not read article 6 of the MRF constitution.

“Ours is a righteous cause. Victory will be ours,” Dogan said, in words strikingly reminiscent of those used by then-Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

Valentin Tonchev, a Dogan loyalist, told Nova Televizia on August 29: “Mr. Dogan is returning with full force to the operational politics of Bulgaria and we all hope that he will be part of the MRF (election candidate) lists.” This is what Valentin Tonchev from DPS-Dogan told “Nova TV” today.

Tonchev said that the MRF lists for the upcoming elections will be drawn up by the collective bodies of the party.

“Next week, consultations will begin by regions under the chairmanship of Ahmed Dogan and (MRF co-leader) Dzhevdet Chakarov. Each region will arrange its lists – something that was not done in the last elections,” Tonchev said.

Peevski’s time in the MRF is over, Tonchev said.

Ilhan Kyuchuk, MRF deputy leader and an MEP, told Bulgarian National Television on August 29: “The removal of Delyan Peevski is a logical and consistent move in view of what he has been doing in the past few months”.

Kyuchuk said that this included disrespecting the basic rules of the MRF, and repressive measures.

Peevski never had real relations with the party’s organisations, Kyuchuk said.

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