Bulgarian Nationalist Leader: Ruling Party Presidential Candidate is Nice Renegade

Bulgarian ruling party GERB presidential candidate, Regional Development Min Rosen Plevneliev, is a nice guy, but is unfit for the office of president, said nationalist Ataka party leader Volen Siderov, who is also a contender for the position.

"Plevneliev is a very nice person, but neither I, nor the millions of Bulgarian voters know his political views on Bulgaria's national interests and global politics," commented Siderov on GERB's candidacy, which was revealed Sunday afternoon.

The punchline of the Bulgarian nationalist leader was that the country needs for president a figure with clear-cut political commitments, like him and unlike his technocratic GERB rival.

"You can't frame for yourself a political profile for just two months ahead of elections end of October, after serving as an expert minister for infrastructure," said Siderov.

He also quipped that while some - like him - chose to stay in the country during the transition period in the early 1990s and work for Bulgaria's democratization, Plevneliev ran away for corporate work in Germany as a "Gastarbeiter."

In Bulgaria's last presidential elections in 2006, Volen Siderov made an especially good showing, finishing second in the first round with 21.5% of the vote.

At the second round, Siderov lost with 24% of votes to outgoing Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, who grabbed 76%.

Opinion polls carried out over the summer show only 2-5% support for Siderov for the October 23 elections, far behind Bulgarian Socialist Party candidate, MEP Ivailo Kalfin, and independent candidate, ex-EU Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, with around 15% each.

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