site.btaCC-DB Co-Chair Petkov: Stoyanov Proposed for Interior Minister by GERB

Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) co-leader Kiril Petkov told the morning programme of Nova TV on Tuesday that Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov was presented for the position as an expert from GERB. Petkov was commenting on Stoyanov nomination for the position.

Petkov demanded Stoyanov's resignation following Thursday riots of football hooligans in Sofia during a protest against the management of the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU). 

"It was very important for the Interior Ministry that this person was not politically affiliated because local elections were coming up and he had to be as neutral as possible," Petkov said. In his words, both Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria and GERB were submiting names that they mutually refused. "After we saw that Kalin Stoyanov is a young, politically unattached professional in GDCOC (General Directorate Combating Organised Crime), we offered him the position," Petkov added. Asked by whom specifically Stoyanov's name was offered, he said that as far as he remembered it was either Mariya Gabriel or Boyko Borissov.

Regarding Stoyanov's allegations of interference in his work as a minister by the CC-DB co-leader, Petkov said that the last conversation between the two was in mid-August on the occasion of the change of directors of regional directorates of the Interior Ministry. "The only thing I said to him is are you sure that all of them are people who are not to be trusted. Because some of these directors made relatively fair elections under Boyko Rashkov's term [as Interior Minister]. You change these people because they haven't done their job or because there is something else," Petkov said. He claimed that no one has ever witnessed him push for certain people to be appointed in positions of power.  

He said that his parliamentary group will table a motion on Tuesday for a commission of inquiry into the events.