site.btaAgrarian Union Rejects Leadership's Attempt to Resign

Agrarian Union Rejects Leadership's Attempt to Resign

Sofia, April 2 (BTA) - Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU) Chairman and former defence minister Nikolay Nenchev and the entire party leadership tendered their resignations on Sunday but the BANU Governing Council turned them down. The party adopted a declaration calling on the democratic community to unite and slamming what they see as a "retaliatory policy" of the caretaker government.

The BANU, which was a partner in the right-wing Reformist Bloc, repeatedly called for right-wing unity ahead of the March 26 general elections. But the rightists remained badly fragmented and none of their three major formations - the Reformist Bloc, Yes Bulgaria, and New Republic - cleared the 4 per cent barrier for entry to the legislature.

In Sunday's declaration, the party said: "Over 300,000 democratically minded Bulgarian citizens will not be represented in the 44th National Assembly, but we will work with our partners to make their voice heard."

Saying they cannot accept the "retaliatory policy" of the caretaker government, the BANU protested against "the massive political purge" in the government apparatus, particularly in the domain of national security.

"We are bewildered at how the caretaker government created a mess in the field of agriculture in such a short time," the declaration further said. According to it, a lack of competence has endangered the farmer aid campaign in 2017.

The BANU expressed their indignation at the "ugly scenes at the Bulgarian-Turkish border in the run-up to the elections," when supporters of the nationalist United Patriots coalition made several attempts to block the border in a bid to prevent the entry of Bulgarian Turks who were being bussed from Turkey in large numbers in order to vote in the parliamentary elections. "To fire up tensions with any of our neighbours is something that holds enormous risks. Nationalist hysteria has never been typical of the Bulgarian people," the party said.

They wondered why President Rumen Radev and Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov have both failed to attach equal seriousness to alerts about Ankara and the Kremlin interfering in the Bulgarian elections.

The BANU vowed to watch over the fulfillment of democratic principles, the rule of law, and Bulgaria's adherence to the Euro-Atlantic path of development during the talks for the formation of the new government.