site.btaMedia Review: November 8

MRF LEADER KARADAYI RESIGNS

The media outlets highlight the resignation of Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Mustafa Karadayi two months before the end of his term. Karadayi was elected chairman in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020.

Mediapool.bg says this move had long been expected. Now MRF founder and honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan will lead the party until a national conference early in 2024. Mediapool.bg learned from its sources that Dogan himself demanded Karadayi's resignation.

Capital.bg says Karadayi had been isolated within the party since this last spring when he stopped appearing at major party events. Since September, when the new political season began, Karadayi's presence in Parliament has been minimal. In mid-October, Delyan Peevski joined him as the MRF's Co-Floor Leader, and was tasked with working with the MPs, while Karadayi was expected to focus on the preparation of the local elections. On October 29, the day of the first round of Bulgaria's local elections, which coincided with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkiye, the MRF released an address by Peevski along with a translation into Turkish. After a reception at the Turkish Embassy, a photo was published featuring Peevski and MPs of the MRF beside Ambassador Aylin Sekizkök, from which Karadayi was absent.

Interviewed by the Bulgarian National Radio, Freedom and Dignity Party Chairman Orhan Ismailov said there had never been two MRF floor leaders, which was a sign that Karadayi would have to go. He did not fit into the picture. A change in the game was needed to consolidate the government, and Peevski has more or less been setting the government's agenda, Ismailov said. Peevski would make a good prime minister in the ruling quasi-coalition - he is a quick decision maker and has long been ready for this role. As to Karadayi, he is unlikely to set up a new party. No one is interested in luring voters away from the MRF, which serves the ruling parties well very well.

24 Chasa says the MRF's analysis points to a need of modernizing the party. In recent months, Peevski has put it back on the political scene, thus reversing Karadayi's policy. As a result, both political opponents and partners have started talking and reckoning with the MRF, with Peevski reportedly telling Parliament what to do. Dogan is back for a while to put the Movement on the track to modernization more quickly, MRF members said. Next February, the party may elect a leader who is not an ethnic Turk for the first time in its 33-year history. It is only to be expected that this will be 43-year-old Peevski.

Nova TV interviewed political analysts Parvan Simeonov and Stoycho Stoychev, journalist Lyubcho Neshkov and media and journalism expert Georgi Lozanov about Karadayi's resignation. Simeonov said the question is what is going to happen with the MRF, which acts as a buffer zone between Ankara and Sofia. Ahmed Dogan will not head the party forever and at some point he will have to leave it to someone. Stoychev said Peevski would strive for a public position, such as prime minister. The analyst believes former Kardzhali mayor Hasan Azis will be the next MRF leader because all chairmen after Dogan came from population centres in the Rhodopi Mountains. According to Stoychev, the MRF is of interest to the United States because the Movement has clout with Islamic organizations and could influence elections both in Bulgaria and in Turkiye through expatriate organizations. Neshkov commented that Karadayi made a fatal mistake when he toured the southern Kardzhali Region with Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in April. Relations between the MRF and Turkiye are not what they were 10-15 years ago, there is now a more normal communication. Karadayi hit the brakes on this process, so he had to go. Lozanov said the only unexpected thing was that Karadayi resigned before the end of his term on December 12.

Journalist Valeria Veleva told the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) that a healing process has started in the party. The plan is for the MRF to become the second most influential political force and enter government after the next parliamentary elections.

In a bTV interview, journalist Ilhan Anday said the MRF relies on Peevski because his analysis shows the MRF could win some 500,000 votes in the next parliamentary elections. He is likely to be elected MRF leader in February, which will boost the Movement's influence in the mixed population regions. In recent years, Dogan has been talking to his closest circle about renaming the MRF, using the words "liberal party" or some such phrase.

HOME SCENE

Wednesday is the Day X after the elections, which will show if the quasi-coalition will survive, 24 Chasa says, quoting politicians' statements of the last few days. Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov called for a leaders' meeting and for an end to pre-election criticisms, threats and comments. Continue the Change (CC) co-leader Kiril Petkov was the first to send a signal that after winning the mayoral elections in Sofia and Varna, the CC - Democratic Bulgaria (DB) coalition is ready for a truce with GERB. Meanwhile, leader Boyko Borissov will ask GERB's MPs if they will continue supporting the government. Angered by CC-DB's collaboration with other parties against GERB in the run-off election, Borissov said he was not certain the quasi-coalition existed any more. A growing number of GERB MPs are taking a stance against the cabinet, while others still want the cabinet to bring to fruition the coalition's goals: entry in Schengen and the euro area and revisions of the Constitution. For his part, Delyan Peevski, on behalf of the MRF, urged the leaders to stop issuing ultimatums and run the country together in the name of the Bulgarians' safety and calm.

On Wednesday, the MPs of GERB and the MRF did not turn up for a plenary sitting, which was called off for lack of a quorum. CC-DB did not register for the sitting so as to stop the opposition from dictating this month's agenda.

AFTER THE LOCAL ELECTIONS

Capital.bg comments that Vanya Grigorova said she would challenge Vassil Terziev's election in order to grab the public's attention and hold on to her political gains. The runner-up in Sofia's mayoral elections has no weighty arguments for overturning the election results; however, a public scandal will help Grigorova sustain her position as an opponent to the status quo and her claim to political leadership. Grigorova, who was nominated by the Sofia chapter of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and was backed by left-wing parties, and her team stated on several occasions that they would go to court and "demand a probe, but would not exactly challenge the election results", which is a kind of nonsense. She can lodge an appeal against the decision of the municipal election commission about the results, but the court cannot be asked to check tally sheets on someone's whim. Terziev leads on Grigorova with fewer than 5,000 votes.

Duma quotes BSP Deputy Chairman Atanas Zafirov as saying on BNT on Tuesday that Grigorova would not have achieved such a result without the party's support. He added that "the way Grigorova has been talking with part of the public in the last couple of days should not be linked with the BSP in any way - she has been talking on her behalf and in her capacity as a municipal councillor". Zafirov voiced concern that Grigorova said she did not know who had financed her campaign, which he called "rather well-funded".

24 Chasa reports that 33 MPs ran in the local elections, including 17 from Vazrazhdane and 8 from CC-DB. Only three of them were elected mayors. Those who failed to be elected mayors but made it to the municipal councils are opting to return to Parliament in large numbers. The MPs from Vazrazhdane were the first to do so, except Deyan Nikolov, who ran for Sofia mayor and will now lead the party's group in the municipal council.

Boris Bonev told segabg.com that the CC-DB and Save Sofia group in the capital's municipal council would not seek a single coalition partner but would rely on thematic majorities in the next four years. CC-DB and Save Sofia have already been talking with the other groups, but collaboration will not be based on promises of jobs.

In a bTV interview, former caretaker interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev commented on the scandal over machine voting, which was eliminated by the Central Election Commission (CEC) in the first round of the elections. He said the Denkov cabinet refused to interact with the CEC, unlike the caretaker cabinets, which held regular meetings with the Election Commission to ensure fair elections. The State Agency for National Security (SANS) sent the Prime Minister and the CEC a memo questioning the certification of voting machines on October 26. The information was made public on October 27 and came from Parliament, meaning that a cover-up was attempted, Demerdzhiev said. The CEC's decision was not based on the SANS report but stated clearly that machine voting was not an option without valid certification of the devices, he added.

ECONOMY

Trud reports the property tax will rise by up to 65% in 2024 and households will pay higher waste collection fees if Parliament adopts the cabinet's proposal for amendments to the Local Taxes and Fees Act. The sum total for an 80 square metre flat in downtown Sofia may increase to BGN 612 from BGN 383 now. The property tax for such a flat in a building dating from the 1980s is BGN 207 now (or half that amount if this is the owner's primary home) and will rise to BGN 335 from January.

BNT asked economist Mihail Krastev and Association of Restaurants Chairman Emil Kolarov if the 20% VAT rate should be reinstated for restaurants. Krastev said the 9% VAT rate introduced during the pandemic was meant as compensation for the administrative restrictions on certain businesses and was not based on financial logic. The differentiated VAT rates for all sectors cost the Exchequer over BGN 500 million a year and are proving very hard to remove. For his part, Kolarov said 24 out of the EU's 27 Member States have differentiated VAT rates in place for restaurants. It will take this industry a few more years to recover from being at a standstill for two and a half years.

ROAD TRAFFIC

In Trud, Bogdan Milchev, head of the Road Safety Institute, cites traffic police data showing that 455 people were killed in road accidents in the year until November 5, which is 25 more than a year earlier. "For six months now the government and Nikolay Denkov himself have failed to cope and we demand his resignation," Milchev said.