An oil portrait of Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, has been removed from an exhibit inside the building of the Parliament over the active campaigning before the October 23 presidential and local elections.

The author, a self-taught painter, is Anton Dimitrov, 31, whose display of landscapes, still-lives and portraits opened Wednesday at the Club of the Member of the Parliament. The painter says that he finished the portrait in 10 days, brought it to Parliament still wet, and hopes an MP will purchase it after all and give it to Borisov as gift. The price is BGN 2 700.

"The portrait shows how the PM takes over a State in deplorable condition – on the background everything is gray, the fields are unplowed and later – everything turns OK after him entering office. Bulgaria no longer looks this gray," Dimitrov points out and explains he used a newspaper photograph of Borisov for his art piece.

According to Dimitrov, who also says he often travels to neighboring Turkey, what Borisov does for his country is similar to what Kemal Ataturk has done for Turkey, and this is why it is right for his portraits to be seen all over Bulgaria.

He points out the PM looks thinner and more worried precisely because he is portrayed at the time he took office, adding he really wished to show his work to him.

Meanwhile, it was reported Saturday that a decision on the part of the Union of Bulgarian Artists to award honorary memberships to Borisov and Minister of Culture Vezhdi Rashidov has provoked the ire of key Union members.