site.btaMRF Leadership Says Party Will Stay True to Itself

MRF Leadership Says Party Will Stay True to Itself

Kurdjali, Southern Bulgaria, January 8 (BTA) - A political anniversary on Friday provided an occasion for the new leaders of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) to present the party as strong and vibrant in the wake of the late December ouster of its chairman Lyutvi Mestan. "The MRF will stay true to its ideological and substantive profile as a Bulgarian independent Liberal political force," the party's Co-Chairman Chetin Kazak told a news conference in Kurdjali, a major MRF stronghold where the regional MRF chapter was celebrating 26 years of its establishment.

"Any attempts to supplant, change or appropriate the profile, the substantive essence of the MRF, to present it in a distorted way, are doomed to fail," Kazak went on to say. "The MRF is an impregnable fortress built with the hearts and the souls, the trust and the love of its members and supporters, and it can be conquered neither from within nor from without."

The other two co-chairmen of the party, Moustafa Karadayi and Roushen Riza, were also at the celebration. Riza told the media that the MRF will uphold the principles and the goals for which it was founded.

Speakers at the news briefing also commented on Thursday's press conference by Lyutvi Mestan, who said he was determined to remain in politics. Karadayi said he does not know of any ultimatum which may have been issued to Mestan to resign. "As far as I know, before visiting the Turkish Embassy, Mestan stated he was going to resign," Karadayi said.

Reacting to rumours about another anniversary celebration in Kurdjali involving MRF defectors, the party's interim regional leader Hassan Azis said he has no information about such an event. "No one in the MRF's regional or municipal sections knows anything or has been invited to any such function," he said.

The MRF celebration in Kurdjali was attended by about 400 people, including almost all major figures in the party: founding members who were repressed by the former Communist regime during the so-called Regeneration Process, former members of Parliament and the central government, and current MRF parliamentarians.