site.btaUPDATED Protesters Demanding Interior Minister's Resignation Block Eeagles' Bridge in Sofia
Protesting citizens and representatives of the BOEC civil movement, who demand the resignation of caretaker Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov, blocked Sofia’s Eagles' Bridge for around half an hour on Wednesday evening. There were police teams on the spot regulating traffic.
The protest started in front of the building of the Interior Ministry in downtown Sofia earlier on Wednesday evening.
The protest was organized after President Rumen Radev on Monday refused to sign the decree for a caretaker government after prime minister-designate Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva refused to replace Interior minister Kalin Stoyanov in her draft caretaker government.
Georgi Georgiev said that the protest was the sixth in a row in the past year demanding the resignation of Kalin Stoyanov. "There is no one else but the citizens to defend their votes and the holding of fair elections," Georgiev said. In his words Stoyanov is one of "Peevski's puppets", referring to Movement for Rights and Freedoms Floor Leader Delyan Peevski.
Borislav Sandov of The Green Movement party, which supported the protest, told the participants that a reform is needed at the Interior Ministry. In his words, police officers are used as a shield for one person's "political skin". The biggest political forces in Parliament as well as the President have demanded Kalin Stoyanov's resignation, and now it is up to the citizens to take to the streets and force Stoyanov to resign.
Lawyer Petar Slavov commented that if Stoyanov resigns, he will probably be replaced by Stoyan Kalinov, one of his deputies or someone else, but in any case the new caretaker interior minister will be a copy of Stoyanov. "We should not let that happen," Slavov argued.
/DS/
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