site.btaGERB Accuse Socialists and President Radev of Double Standards in Nazi Salute Scandal

GERB Accuse Socialists and President Radev of Double Standards in Nazi Salute Scandal

Sofia, June 16 (BTA) - The ruling GERB party on Friday accused the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the country's President Rumen Radev of having double standards in being tough on public officials who have joked about Nazi symbols yet failing to show much concern about a similar case which involved presidential advisor Plamen Uzunov.

Presenting a declaration on GERB's behalf, Toma Bikov MP said: "If we want to have a single standard about Nazi ideology, the BSP and Rumen Radev must speak up and clearly demand Plamen Uzunov's resignation, as they did in the case of Pavel Tenev."

Tenev was Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, but a 2008 photo of him doing the Nazi salute at the Grevin wax museum in Paris led him to resign. His resignation had been demanded by the BSP, who insisted that no one should joke about Nazism. Tenev was also strongly criticized by President Radev, who, however, did nothing about the case of Uzunov, although a publicized photo of Uzunov showed him wearing a Nazi uniform and a Hitler-like moustache and doing the Nazi salute, too. Uzunov was Interior Minister in the caretaker government between January and May 2017 and now serves as Legal Affairs and Anti-Corruption Secretary to President Radev, who was elected head of state with the BSP's support.

Uzunov told Bulgarian National Television: "I do not have to resign, because the scandal has been engineered and well-orchestrated to discredit the Presidency and me. The photo was deliberately circulated and manipulated - it was taken out of the private archive of a person who was at a party that I attended back in 2003." During that party, there was a masquerade in which a draw of lots determined that Uzunov should do Hitler, the presidential advisor explained.

In Friday's declaration, GERB noted that the BSP's bitter reaction against Tenev was not apparently a sincere act of civil protest, but rather an act which pursued narrow partisan goals. "I hope the President is also aware that he himself has laid the groundwork for a new political standard," Toma Bikov said. He urged the Movement for Rights and Freedoms to react as well.