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Bulgaria's Ruling Party Pocketed Handsome Extra Subsidies from Renegade MPs

Politics » DOMESTIC | November 7, 2011, Monday // 17:17

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Bulgaria: Bulgaria's Ruling Party Pocketed Handsome Extra Subsidies from Renegade MPs

A report of the National Audit Office published on November 07 shows that renegade MPs' allegiance to GERB resulted in significant financial gains for the party from public subsidies. Photo by BGNES

Renegade MPs fetched over BGN 300 000 in additional public subsidies for center-right ruling party GERB for the first six months of 2011, according to calculations of the National Audit Office.

The audit, which was requested by Parliament in September, yields that GERB received a total of BGN 333 656 after Darin Matov, Dimitar Kolev, Todor Velikov, former MPs of the marginal conservative Order, Law and Justice party (RZS), and Kasim Dal, an ex MP of the ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), pledged allegiance to the ruling party.

The report of the Audit Office goes on to inform that the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) pocketed an extra BGN 98 000 in public subsidies for the first six months of 2011 thanks to Kamen Petkov who left the ranks of nationalist party Ataka.

At the same time, the document shows that Valentin Nikolov, Kiril Gumnerov and Ognyan Peychev, former members of Ataka, failed to account for the subsidy, together with five ex MPs of RZS and Korman Ismailov who left DPS to support Kasim Dal.

The request for the audit came in September, after entire groups of MPs left the ranks of their parties.

It was subsequently revealed that the renegade MPs could redirect subsidies to a political formation of their choice by declaring their support for it.

The announcement triggered a scandal between the renegade MPs and their previous parliamentary groups.

The total number of independent MPs in Parliament currently stands at 18.

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