site.btaMRF Floor Leader Peevski Accuses President Radev of Interfering with Electoral Process

Commenting on a statement of President Rumen Radev, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Floor Leader Delyan Peevski said that he and his followers will not allow Radev to stop their new beginning. "We will not allow Radev to stop the new beginning, and he will not subdue us. Neither threaten, nor humiliate," Peevski stressed. Following the rift in MRF, Peevski registered a new coalition – the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) - New Beginning, which is made up of the wing of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) supporting Peevski, the Bulgarian Voice party and the New Leaders party.

"Today, in his despair and helplessness, Rumen Radev revealed his true face. A self-deluded ruler who desperately defends his trusted circle of oligarchs and most of all himself. After eight years in which Radev usurped power disproportionately in violation of the Constitution, two terms-in-office, in which all the heads of [the security] services were under his control, three years in which he ruled single-handedly through his puppet governments, today he has again demanded all the power for himself, and [demanded] the state to be in the service of him and his trusted circle," Peevski argued.

According to Peevski, Radev is self-deluded and brutally interferes not just with the political system, but with the electoral process, as well.

Earlier on Saturday, Radev said that he expects the Central Election Commission to strictly monitor the implementation of the Election Code ahead of the upcoming snap parliamentary elections on October 27. "The most repulsive and insulting thing for the Bulgarians' intellect, and for our Euro-Atlantic partners, is that this is being done behind the veil of Euro-Atlanticism and by people sanctioned by our strategic partners for significant corruption," the head of State said, without going into further detail on the matter. He added that this is destructive for democracy in Bulgaria and compromises this country’s European future. "I expect all institutions, services, the prosecuting magistracy, the National Assembly and [political] parties to clearly position themselves on this fundamental issue for our future and to take adequate actions," Radev urged.

In 2021, Peevski was designated by the US under the Global Magnitsky Act as an oligarch who "has regularly engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society." Peevski is challenging the designation in a US court. His lawyers argue that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by their client.