Thousands in protest in Bulgaria’s capital to get Peevski out of power
Several thousand Bulgarians turned out in capital city Sofia on March 19 for a protest, organised by the Justice for All initiative, to campaign for the ouster by all legal means of Delyan Peevski from power.
Peevski, long a controversial figure who is sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act for large-scale corruption, leads the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning parliamentary group and while formally not part of the ruling majority, is widely seen as holding sway over it and over key institutions in Bulgaria.
The reallocation of seats in Bulgaria’s Parliament, following a Constitutional Court decision nullifying the election of some MPs, has thinned the number of seats held by the official ruling majority to the barest minimum, a development that augments Peevski’s influence.
Boiko Borissov, the former prime minister who leads Parliament’s largest group, GERB-UDF – holder of the mandate to govern – has said that approval of the Budget now is dependent on Peevski, and on March 19, went further to abdicate responsibility for a ruling majority, shifting that his group’s own Rossen Zhelyazkov, the incumbent Prime Minister.
Peevski, who has stated his ambition to be Prime Minister, has sought to portray himself as saving Bulgaria from “a coup”, told reporters on March 19: “ Everyone will be with me – whether now, whether in the next parliament, from now on they will work with Peevski, because the people decide”.
At the protest, which began outside the Palace of Justice, a succession of speakers derided the influence of Peevski – with the mention of his name drawing, at every turn, an indignant wave of boos.
Speakers emphasised how the findings of the Constitutional Court had exposed abuses and shortcomings of Bulgaria’s electoral system and showed the need for root and branch reform of that system.
Founded nine years ago, the Justice for All initiative has campaigned for thorough judicial reform, including against a succession of Prosecutors-General, with the March 19 protest seeing a repeat of calls for acting Prosecutor-General Borislav Sarafov not to be admitted to being the elected holder of that post.
Speakers spoke of Borissov having become Peevski’s junior partner, saying that Borissov would eventually become Peevski’s latest victim.
On the theme of “corruption kills”, and referencing similar fatal incidents in Bulgaria in recent decades, a minute of silence was held for the 69 victims of the March 16 fatal fire at a disco in North Macedonia’s Kocani.
There were calls for participants to turn out to vote in coming elections, and to involve themselves in the electoral process, which polls have shown to have credibility damaged by the revelations about abuses, including suspicions of biased electoral officials.
At the close of the speeches at the Palace of Justice, participants enthusiastically joined in singing the Bulgarian national anthem, before marching in procession past the Party House – the current venue of the National Assembly – to the old Parliament building.
A week earlier, there was also a demonstration against the prosecutor’s interference in the Constitutional Court’s case on the election results. The march was under the banner “WHO is blocking the constitution” – “WHO” being a reference to Peevski, dating from the 2013-2014 protests sparked by his short-lived election as head of the State Agency for National Security.
In response, Peevski said: “If you riot in the streets, I will take out people wherever you riot, everywhere – in Sofia and the country. There will be no coups, there will be Bulgaria. They will not scare me with protests. Everything has happened to me in this life, they have tried to destroy me many times, but they could not. That’s why now it’s all over for them.”
The March 19 protest saw several references to this threat, and at one point, a show of hands among participants showed that many were veterans of the protests against Peevski more than a decade ago.
(Photos: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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