site.btaDzhevdet Chakarov: MRF Is Where Ahmed Dogan Is

The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) is where its founder, ideologue and honorary chair Ahmed Dogan is, Dzhevdet Chakarov of the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms said in a position statement released by the MRF-Dogan Press Office on Saturday. He urged all “authentic MRF people” to resist manipulation and insinuation. According to Chakarov, people who were justly expelled from the MRF have stage-managed a theatrical play over the last few days and have tried to re-write history, supplant the truth and steal legitimacy for themselves.

The statement came after Delyan Peevski proclaimed himself as the only leader of MRF-New Beginning earlier in the day, and said that Dzhevdet Chakarov was expelled. Peevski talked to reporters after a Central Council meeting of the MRF-New Beginning.

Peevski and Chakarov were the two chairmen of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms until it split in July into two factions - one loyal to MRF founder and honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan and another led by Peevski. The faction loyal to Dogan ran in the October 27 parliamentary elections as the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (ARF), a coalition registered by the Agrarian People's Union and the Just Bulgaria United Patriots. Peevski led the MRF-New Beginning and won 30 seats in the elections, while the ARF won 19 seats.

In his statement on Saturday, Chakarov also said that the people whom he accused of legitimacy theft are mustering an army of phantoms and persons who have never been a part of the MRF Central Council and are alien to the MRF’s legacy. They dare to push aside even the brightest personality in MRF history, Ahmed Dogan. Their so-called new beginning has lying, lawlessness and moral degradation as their main standards, said Chakarov, who signed his statement as “Chairperson of the Central Council of the MRF.”

In anticipation of a Sofia City Court judgment, Chakarov sees disturbing signs of pressure on the court. He resents the actions of the executive power led by caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, who, according to Chakarov, is using the most abominable methods to evict public institutions from their offices and ensconce corruption and dependencies in a lair of his own. Instead of serving the best interests of the citizens, the government is working in complicity with figures sanctioned for corruption under the US Global Magnitsky Act, Chakarov said. (The reference is to Delyan Peevski.) Chakarov insisted that the MRF has a legitimate head office at 45A Alexander Stamboliiski Blvd in Sofia and will not allow illegal transfer or confiscation of its own property. On Monday, the MRF will ask for a reversal of this “unlawful” decision made before the parliamentary groups are constituted and in the absence of a decision by the MRF leadership for the party to use another building, he said.