Bulgaria Electoral Body Sucked into Secret Files Scandal
Politics | October 23, 2007, Tuesday
As Bulgaria delves through its Communist-era files to discover the identity of former collaborators and informants, a shadow was cast over the central electoral body for the upcoming municipal vote. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)
Five days before Bulgarians head to vote in local elections, the findings of the special panel investigating the country's communist-era police files widened to include two members of the central electoral body.
The special panel exposed Rumen Elenski and Tsvetozaria Yosifova - Kuteva to have been collaborators to the secret services by publishing their names on its web site.
Kuteva, wife of Olimpi Kutev, MP on the ticket of the centrist party of former king Simeon Saxe-Coburg and former district governor of Sofia, was nominated for member of the Central Electoral Commission by the party of her husband in 2003.
Rumen Elenski was recruited at the beginning of the 80s and served as an intelligence agent. He was nominated for member of the Central Electoral Commission by the Bulgarian Socialist Party in 2005.
Following the latest revelations the list of state security collaborators is slowly swelling.
At the beginning of September a special panel released the names of 138 agents and collaborators to the secret services, who have been members of Bulgaria's parliaments since the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. Also on the list were the names of president Georgi Parvanov and 19 current members of parliament.
Bulgaria's Socialist President Georgi Parvanov was exposed as state security collaborator for the first time at the end of July, six out of 218 runners in Bulgaria's first MEP elections were earlier revealed to have murky past, along with three former constitutional judges and fifteen supreme magistrates and investigators.
The files of the former Committee for State Security are a thorny issue in Bulgaria, especially when it comes to the past of high-ranking officials.
Bulgaria's communist-era security service is believed to have remained potent after the fall of communism with the ex-operatives closely linked to the political and business establishment.
The special panel exposed Rumen Elenski and Tsvetozaria Yosifova - Kuteva to have been collaborators to the secret services by publishing their names on its web site.
Kuteva, wife of Olimpi Kutev, MP on the ticket of the centrist party of former king Simeon Saxe-Coburg and former district governor of Sofia, was nominated for member of the Central Electoral Commission by the party of her husband in 2003.
Rumen Elenski was recruited at the beginning of the 80s and served as an intelligence agent. He was nominated for member of the Central Electoral Commission by the Bulgarian Socialist Party in 2005.
Following the latest revelations the list of state security collaborators is slowly swelling.
At the beginning of September a special panel released the names of 138 agents and collaborators to the secret services, who have been members of Bulgaria's parliaments since the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. Also on the list were the names of president Georgi Parvanov and 19 current members of parliament.
Bulgaria's Socialist President Georgi Parvanov was exposed as state security collaborator for the first time at the end of July, six out of 218 runners in Bulgaria's first MEP elections were earlier revealed to have murky past, along with three former constitutional judges and fifteen supreme magistrates and investigators.
The files of the former Committee for State Security are a thorny issue in Bulgaria, especially when it comes to the past of high-ranking officials.
Bulgaria's communist-era security service is believed to have remained potent after the fall of communism with the ex-operatives closely linked to the political and business establishment.
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