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European Elections 2019: Pre-election rivalry between GERB and BSP getting stronger

Photo: BGNES

A few days ago, BSP signaled the CEC over Prime Minister Boyko Borissov using state resources for conducting the GERB election campaign, going around the country and giving money from the Council of Ministers. In turn GERB submitted a complaint to the Commission against "participation of President Rumen Radev in BSP’s election campaign". The BSP has warned that, according to mayors, chairpersons of municipal councils and deputies, in the course of the election campaign the ruling GERB party resorts to administrative pressure and has intensified inspections on socialist mayors. BSP chairwoman Cornelia Ninova said that because of fears of manipulation of election results, the socialists undertake a parallel vote counting.

Meanwhile, CEC spokesman Alexander Andreev told the Bulgarian National Radio that certification of the voting machines will start on May 16 under the same terms and conditions like the ones during the presidential elections in 2016. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms continues its election campaign with commemoration of the so-called "revival process" in 1989, when the totalitarian regime held a massive action to forcefully change the names of ethnic Turks. Speaking at a pre-election rally that Europe faced a dilemma whether to go in the direction of nationalism and xenophobia or to follow the path of tolerance, democracy and unity, MRF President Mustafa Karadayi pointed out that with its experience, the movement could be helpful. President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, Hans Van Baalen, supported Karadayi, saying Western Europe could learn from MRF's experience in preserving ethnic peace and tolerance. In a televised interview, VMRO leader Krasimir Karakachanov called for a change in EU policy, which had been conceived as a union of sovereign states, and was now run by bureaucrats that no one had chosen. Expressing strong disagreement with Muslim and migrant compliance policy, Karakachanov said that it is was normal for people who had not been invited to come to Europe to dictate rules. During the election campaign of the Ataka party, its leader, Volen Siderov said that Europe was a peninsula part of Eurasia and avoiding communication with Russia was harmful. Siderov has pointed out that one of the first tasks of Ataka MEPs in the new European Parliament would be to demand lifting the embargo against Russia.

English: Alexander Markov



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