Center-right party GERB has vowed to include Bulgarian Muslims as candidates for the 2014 European elections to challenge the monopoly of liberal party DPS.

Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Deputy Chair of GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) and head of the election HQ of the party, presented the strategy at a Sunday meeting with GERB representatives from mixed-population regions in Razgrad.

Tsvetanov accused DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), a member of Bulgaria's current socialist-led coalition government, of unprecedented revanchism and hatred, suggesting that the actions were probably attributable to the fact that DPS was sensing that it was losing its political grip on Bulgarian Muslims.

He underscored that the problems in mixed-population regions were nothing like the problems in big cities.

"People living in big cities must be aware of the fact that there are rural areas in Bulgaria in which the 20th century has not arrived yet due to the longtime practice of DPS of imposing total political, economic and cultural isolation of the regions in which it enforced its political monopoly," Tsvetanov said, as cited by GERB's press office.
Tsvetanov argued that high turnout would help bring the people living in these regions closer to national and EU values.

"Through the practice of political repression, DPS created a serious dividing line between Bulgarian Muslims," he declared, adding that the people who had dared to be members of other parties than DPS had come under the harshest attacks, including dismissals, pressure and threats.

Tsvetanov claimed that these people had been stigmatized as traitors and terrorized through all means available by the local and central authorities.

He insisted that the situation was unacceptable for an EU member state and Bulgaria was not to tolerate it any longer.

Sunday's meeting brought together over 100 representatives of GERB from the mixed-population regions of Razgrad, Targovishte, Silistra and Shumen, according to reports of Sega daily.

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