Bulgarian socialist MP and Deputy Parliament Speaker Maya Manolova has argued that ex-President Georgi Parvanov's ABV movement will be used as a crutch by center-right party GERB.

In a Sunday interview for private TV station bTV, Manolova claimed that the initial idea behind the creation of the Alternative for Bulgarian Renaissance (ABV) movement of former two-term President and former BSP leader Georgi Parvanov had been distorted, adding that Parvanov's steps made it possible for the GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov to use the movement to its benefit.

Manolova, as cited by Sega daily, suggested that the members of former ruling party GERB were not supposed to afford to look people in the eyes, taking into account the massive election fraud at the elections in May 2013.

She rejected claims of former Parliament Speaker and GERB MP Tsetska Tsacheva that 90% of the new draft Election Code coincided with the one in force during the term in office of the GERB government.

Manolova, chair of the ad-hoc parliamentary committee tasked with drafting a new Election Code, insisted that if GERB found that the two election codes were largely the same, they were not supposed to vote against the new one.

Bulgaria's Deputy Parliament Speaker noted that everything possible would be done to make sure that the new Election Code was in force for the European Parliament elections in May.

She underscored that the new piece of legislation would guarantee fair elections.

Manolova yet again accused the GERB party of massive election fraud during their 4-year-term in office, saying that election papers had been replaced, bags of unaccounted-for ballot papers had been carried around, and a large number of people had been unduly deprived of their right to vote at the early elections in May 2013.

She pointed out that President Rosen Plevneliev would go down in history as the one elected through fraud under GERB's Election Code.

The socialist MP was adamant that the Bulgarian Socialist Party would emerge as the first political force at the upcoming European Parliament elections in May.

She informed that BSP leader Sergey Stanishev was most likely to be at the top of the election list of the party, adding that he would not compete for a MEP seat but continue his work for BSP instead.

Manolova assured that she had never had any ambitions to become BSP Chair and that there had never been talks about that.

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