The liberal Movement for Rights and Freedoms is Bulgaria's only non-ethnic party, according to leader Lyutvi Mestan, who spoke at the party's May 12 elections campaign launching Saturday.

The Movement opened its campaign in the south-eastern city of Kardzhali, the center of one of the two areas in Bulgaria, where the country's sizeable Turkish minority is concentrated.

Traditionally, the MRF is supported by large parts of that minority, provoking the chronic criticisms that the party is based on an ethnic principle, something prohibited by Bulgaria's constitution.

"I am proud to be the leader of Bulgaria's only non-ethnic party," stated Mestan at the opening of his speech in front of hundreds spporters assembled at the square in front of the Culture Center in Kardzhali.

"These elections are crucial for the direction that Bulgaria is going to take. We must stop the corruption of Bulgarian statehood and restore democracy," said Mestan, referring to the rule by former PM and GERB party leader Boyko Borisov, criticized by many as bent on autocracy.

"GERB appointed an ethnic Turk as minister in order to have an alibi. [Former Culture Minister] Vezhdi Rashidov was just a cover for their policies of discrimination," added the leader.

According to Mestan, thousands of members of MRF's youth organization have been fired from work during GERB's rule 2009-13, based on their political affiliation.

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