Ethnic Turkish Party: Bulgaria Is Not Ready for Minority President

Bulgaria's ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and freedoms, DPS, announced Monday they will reveal the name of the presidential candidate they endorse only if there is a second round in the elections.

In the summer, DPS promised to announce this name after all political parties report officially their nominations for president and vice president to run at the October 23 elections, but changed their mind a month after these names became clear. The ethnic Turkish movement did not register their own nominations.

"The Bulgarian society is not mature enough to accept an ethnic Turkish candidate for the Presidential Office. For this reason we are not yet endorsing anyone else. This is a sign of our own political maturity. We will not appeal to our supporters to not take part in the vote. But we will have a very firm position in an eventual second round, and it would, most likely, turn crucial for the outcome of these elections," the Deputy Chair of the party, Lyutvi Mestan, is quoted saying.

Mestan was adamant that they would not endorse the nomination of the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, GERB, party, over the total failure of their rule.

Regarding the incident in the village of Katunitsa, the DPS activist said it had been a planned scenario of the far-right, nationalist Ataka party, aiming at scoring points for its leader, Volen Siderov, who is also running for president. He did not dismiss a secret participation of GERB in the plot, because more support for Siderov would mean more support for GERB at the second round.

On September 23, a young man from Katunitsa, Angel Petrov, 19, was run over by a minivan, driven by an associate of the notorious local Roma boss, Kiril Rashkov AKA Tsar Kiro. Petrov died as result of the incident.

In the aftermath, Bulgaria became gripped by week-long protests. At some locations protests have turned violent and anti-Roma racist slogans were shouted. Over 350 have been arrested. Tsar Kiro is probed for tax evasion and is held under permanent detention, under a Court rule.

On Monday, Mestan stated the incident has been directed at his party.

"We are firmly against labeling an entire minority group criminal. There should be no talk about Bulgarian, Turkish, or Roma crime. Crime is crime and must be punished, even though it is true that each minority has its own specific traits," he said.

Meanwhile, it was reported that the DPS leader, Ahmed Dogan, has send a letter to Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, to alert him that thousands of Bulgarian citizens have been deprived of their right to vote by being taken out of electoral lists in violation of the Constitution.

According to Dogan, these are people from mostly ethnically mixed areas, who were not able to find their names in the lists, even though their status is in compliance with all requirements in order to have voting rights.

A copy of the letter has been sent to the Minister of Regional Development, Lilyana Pavlova, to Veselin Vuchkov, who is temporarily in charge of the Interior Ministry, since Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, is on leave over being the Head of the GERB Election Campaign Headquarters, to Vadim Zhdanovich, Head of the OSCE mission which will monitor the October 23 local and presidential elections, and to Viviane Redding, EU Commissioner on Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship.

Dogan demands from Borisov to order an immediate correction of electoral lists and reinstatement of citizens voting rights.

"This is a huge problem, because in some municipalities the outcome is decided by 20-20 votes," the ethnic Turkish leader is quoted saying.