site.btaPresident Says "Magnitsky Coalition Was Officialized on Wednesday"

President Rumen Radev said Thursday that "the Magnitsky coalition was officialized on Wednesday", arguing that Movement for Rights and Freedoms - New Beginning Floor Leader Delyan Peevski is at the helm of the ruling coalition and GERB-UDF Floor Leader Boyko Borissov does Peevski's bidding "as he himself said."

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. In 2023, the UK sanctioned Peevski for his involvement "in attempts to exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society through bribery and use of his media empire".

Radev added that there is a good side to this development: “The escalation of this crisis is leading towards its logical outcome, because this governing collaboration cannot last long. It leaves Bulgarians, including members of GERB and Borissov himself, at the mercy of one man’s whims. I am convinced that democracy is stronger than arrogance.”

GERB and MRF - New Beginning confirmed their commitment to upholding the agreed legislative and governance programme aimed at ensuring stability and continuity in the interest of citizens and the state, the two formations said in a joint statement published on their Facebook profiles on Wednesday. The statement by the two parties was accompanied by photographs of MPs from both formations, as well as of the two party leaders, Boyko Borissov and Delyan Peevski, standing side by side.

“The State is not a game of toy cars. Having failed to block the activities of the presidential institution, they are now offering us ‘Greek gifts’ in order to compromise it,” Radev commented in relation to Borissov’s earlier Thursday statement that he had asked Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova for "all the cars, all the drivers, everything that the President has been using, to be transferred to the Preisdent's administration by decree."

“These people cannot wait to trample on their own laws, and that will not work. They are doing it not out of some state interest, not because we are embarrassing ourselves before yet another foreign delegation, but out of panic. People are increasingly asking: ‘After the President stopped using armoured cars, why cannot they do the same? Why are they riding in armoured vehicles?’ Why are Peevski and Borissov riding in brand-new armoured vehicles that are meant for the Prime Minister and the the National Assembly Chair?” Radev commented. He pointed out that he very rarely travels in an armoured car.

On a motion by MRF - New Beginning, Parliament changed the law governing the operation of the National Service for Protection (NSP) and banned the use of NSP vehicles by the President's staff.