The leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, and President of the Party of European Socialists, PES, former Prime Minister, Sergey Stanishev, is truly ashamed by what is happening in his country.

Stanishev spoke Saturday at the conference "European Standards and Good Practices in Organizing Elections. Is Bulgaria Lagging behind?"

He described pressure on the media by the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, and outrages during the local and presidential election in October 2011.

The Socialist leader stressed this election made Bulgarians witnesses of atrocious practices, starting with election legislation, passed at night, without any debates. He said his party is ready with solutions to end election violations.

Stanishev reiterated earlier calls to have all political formations desiring fair elections to join together in cooperating against the iniquity of GERB, explaining this was rather an invitation to the traditional right-wing parties since the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, had already responded positively.

"We are no longer talking about adhering to party lines because democracy and freedom of speech are at stake. We must prevent those in power and their obedient Members of the Parliament from passing some convenient for them election amendments and ignoring international observers. Debates are key and people must hear them; they must hear different viewpoints," Stanishev stated.

According to him, BSP would want a parallel ballot count from international observers for the upcoming 2013 general elections to prevent a detrimental blow to democracy.

"I remain an optimist though; I believe in the wisdom of Bulgarian people and in Europe watching carefully developments in Bulgaria. GERB fear two things – people's anger and Europe," the Socialist concluded.

The forum was organized by the Bulgarian Socialist and DPS MEPs.

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