“Anything with its time,” said former leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Liutvi Mestan due to the expectations for the establishment of a new political project. He was ousted from all positions taken before Christmas after accusations for solidarization of the movement with Turkey on the case with the Russian jet fighter gunned down.

“We haven’t yet declared any intentions for the creation of a new political project and it has already been pronounced to be Islamist,” Mestan said in parliament. “Quite many MRF voters feel unpresented by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the question of their parliamentary representation remains an open issue.”

“I also attend with the collective governing body our structures at places. I haven’t heard about anyone feeling unpresented,” was the response of Tuncher Kardjaliev.

Political expert Strahil Delyiski said at the roundtable, organized by Radio Bulgaria that the Turkish political elite has had its influence not only on the MRF elite, but also on the Bulgarian governing one over the past years.

“I think the Turkish political elite doesn’t have any special need of the MRF, regarding its influence on Bulgarian politics,” Delyiski went on to say. “I see as a PR move the idea that Mestan tries to connect the movement to some political concept of Erdogan. The Turkish president and PM have influence on part of the MRF elite, but not on the voters. The MRF not only uses its electorate as an instrument for a demonstration of support, but also gives them a sense of safety, as a large group of these voters is quite vulnerable, they feel endangered. What the MRF gives its electorate is a proposal for protection, but in my opinion, this has nothing to do with any claims on the part of Turkey whatsoever. Thus the MRF becomes the authentic political representative of one ethnic community in the state, but that’s it. Thanks to that political support the MRF is a factor in the Bulgarian political process, but the two have nothing in common. The Movement uses this support to influence the process, to consume and produce power. In a Rhodope village with traditional voters you would hear no talk about Turkey, to say nothing about neo-Ottomanism. Those are people who only wish to live in a simple, but well arranged world that has nothing to do with the Sofia-headquartered intelligentsia.”

“At the same time it is a generation conflict, as Mestan wanted to promote younger people,” says Associate Prof. Boyko Marinchevski from the Institute of Balkan Studies with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, adding that:

“Honorary Chair of the MRF Ahmed Dogan is the face of another generation, as the transition to a new one was quite successful for the party. Old dogs are currently commenting the latest events for different mass media. These are people who are not part of the Movement anymore and are obviously in the phase of memoir writing ate trying to explain current political processes.”

According to Strahil Delyiski, regardless of the fact that there is a certain discontent on the part of the electorate with some of the party’s leaders and the promises they have failed to keep, things tend to be forgotten, especially in the course of parliamentary elections. The key to understanding the political homogeneity of the Movement is in the fact that the electorate perceives in its elite the representatives that offer them security and protection.

“That wouldn’t have been the case if we haven’t had so many parties whose only reason for political existence is the battle against the MRF,” Delyisky further explains. “If you ask politicians in the patriotic spectrum what they are fighting for, the answer would be – against the MRF. And that is their political platform. In the Reformist Bloc and in Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) in particular,the highest political goal is to eliminate the MRF. In this sense we see how the political impotence of Bulgaria’s political elite creates the broth necessary for statements of the kind “we are protecting you” to overwhelm the minds of the Movement’s voters.”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev