Ivan Kostov, Bulgaria's former prime minister and leader of a small die-hard rightist party, which turned from an ally into a foe of the current government, has said the country is now ruled by oligarchs and the police - just like Russia.

"Bulgaria has started to resemble Russia more and more – a country of oligarchs and police force," Ivan Kostov told Nova TV channel on Tuesday.

Kostov, whose government is credited with throwing out the ex-communists who had pushed the country to the brink of financial crisis in the 90s, accused the politicians in the right-wing spectrum of betraying their core values.

"The right-wing parties have changed out of recognition. It is not the right-wing of reformers Stefan Savov and Anastasiya Mozer, as indeed the European People's Party is not the party as we know it from the days of Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl. The blue idea was stolen by the same people who robbed the Municipal Bank and Sofia Properties companies," Kostov said.

The center-right government of Boyko Borisov's party GERB has 117 of a total of 240 seats in the unicameral chamber and governs with the support of Ataka, a fervently nationalist group.

The conservative Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) of former premier Ivan Kostov initially supported the cabinet but then turned on it.

DSB has repeatedly criticised Boyko Borisov for lack of expertise and accused him of dodging painful reforms.

The Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), once the dominant centre-right party in the country, has been in a steady decline since 2001, when the party lost the general elections following four years of needed, but painful reforms.

It never recovered from the shock, splitting into smaller parties since then, progressively losing ground in public opinion polls, which show it could fail to make it into the next parliament altogether.

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