From Today's Zaman (Turkey)

Bulgaria's extreme-right party leaders have been quick to blame Turkey for interference in Sunday's elections in the neighboring country as the Turkish minority party, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), appeared to secure more than 30 out of the 240 seats in Parliament after getting more than 14 percent of the votes.

The first national elections after Bulgaria's EU accession marked the transition of power from the Socialists to Boiko Borisov's right-wing Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB). Although the MRF increased its votes nationwide, the party lost its position in government.

According to the nearly complete official results as of Monday, the centre-right opposition GERB party won 40 percent of the proportional vote in Sunday's parliamentary election, while the ruling Socialists gained 18 percent.

The MRF secured 35 seats after obtaining 14.48 percent of the vote, while the ultranationalist party Ataka secured around 21 to 22 seats after receiving 9.37 percent of the vote and the extreme-right Order, Lawfulness, Justice party (ORJ) got around 9 to 10 seats with 4.13 percent of the vote.

Supporters of Ataka and the ORJ had staged separate protests at the country's borders with Turkey and attempted to attack buses carrying Turkish citizens with Bulgarian passports who were traveling to the country to cast their votes.

As of election night, the leaders of the both parties targeted either the MRF or Turkey in their assessment statements.

Ankara, however, has apparently chosen to remain silent vis-à-vis those statements, while officials said the Turkish capital has been waiting for complete official results before making an assessment on the elections. As for the statements by certain Bulgarian politicians who accused Turkey of involvement in domestic affairs, sources close to the issue told Today's Zaman that similar statements were made in Bulgaria during previous elections, indicating that Ankara chooses to downplay those statements, considering them to be made for the consumption for domestic public opinion in Bulgaria.

According to one of those leaders, Ataka leader Volen Siderov, the most important outcome of the Parliament elections in Bulgaria was that the MRF would no longer be in government.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday evening, Siderov said abolishment of news broadcasts in Turkish on the state television channel, BNT, should be one of the priorities of the new cabinet.

"The Turkish government backed MRF's propaganda. Turkey owes Bulgaria more than billion for the assets of Thracian Bulgarians seized in 1913 and an apology for five centuries of slavery," Siderov was quoted as saying by The Sofia Echo, an online English-language Bulgarian news portal, as he apparently referred to Ottoman rule over Bulgarian territories.

ORJ leader Yane Yanev, meanwhile, blamed Turkey for "election tourism" and the intervention of its secret services for his party's poor showing, The Sofia Echo reported. Yanev said that on July 8, the OLJ would hold a news conference on how Turkey and its "special forces" had interfered in Bulgarian politics.

Approximately 15 percent of Bulgaria's population is made up of ethnic Turkish people. The mayor of Kardzhali (KД±rcaali in Turkish), a city primarily populated by ethnic Turks, Hasan Aziz, meanwhile, told the Anatolia news agency that although they cannot form a coalition government and lost their three ministries in the cabinet, they in fact increased their votes in Kardzhali and other adjacent regions.

"We are successfully operating both in local and national level. The elections results are a testimony for this," Aziz said.

Enver HatipoДџlu, a representative for the MRF told Today's Zaman that "this election is the advent of change. I think this may be due to the EU accession or some other reasons, [now] the democracy-prone people who formerly ruled the country have once again come to power." Speaking about the MRF's overwhelming success compared to Ataka, he said: "We increased our votes by over 100,000 votes. With the 83,000 of votes coming from outside, nearly 600,000 votes were cast to the credit of the MRF. This is indeed a big success for the MRF."

"Ataka also announced that they will support the coalition led by GERB, which seems somehow a threat, not only to Turkish minority in Bulgaria, but to other minorities as well," HatipoДџlu said. Speculating about the possible coalition of right parties, he said: "They have a platform to cut public spending for minorities here and thus make people leave the country. In addition, they will adopt a law abolishing dual citizenship to deprive ethnically Turkish Bulgarian citizens of their votes. This is challenging."

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