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Like Putin’s Russia, Bulgaria has become a mafia state

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Dimitar Gueorguiev

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May 1, 2023, 10:34:08 PM5/1/23
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Съдейки по написаното само някой би заключил че в България нищо не се е променило за четвърт век.. По едно време беше създадено впечатление, че страната е преодоляла екзистенциалната криза от преди 30 години.

In a historic speech to the US Congress on 12 March 1947, President Truman addressed the menacing spread of Communism and the Soviet take-over of Eastern Europe. Known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’, he portrayed the battle lines for the Cold War as a struggle between autocracy and democracy – something which resonates uncannily today in Ukraine.

The Soviet ‘way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority’, declared President Truman. ‘It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections and the suppression of personal freedoms…The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms’.

Recent opinion polls showed 80 per cent of Bulgarians regarded corruption as widespread

Today the country in the European Union that most resembles that authoritarian oppressive state is Bulgaria, which faces an existential crisis. It has slipped into an autocracy governed by a political elite that has circumvented an independent judiciary and entrenched a culture of impunity. In essence, it is the new Russia. Given its historic ties to Russia, it is no surprise that Bulgaria is ambivalent and reluctant in its support for Ukraine.

For the EU and Council of Europe, Bulgaria represents a major reputational and credibility problem. It is the most corrupt member state, concluded the NGO Transparency International. According to the US State Department it has ‘significant human rights issues’ and ‘serious problems with the independence of the judiciary and government corruption’.

Like Russia, Bulgaria has descended into a mafia state. It is governed by an autocratic kleptocracy and a cadre of oligarchs whose origins can be traced back to the Communist-era espionage agency, the Committee for State Security (CSS), the equivalent of the KGB and the privatisation of lucrative state assets. This crisis also undermines the credibility of the EU because it failed to respond to the escalation of corruption in its poorest state, according to former Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov. He claims the EU has been complacent on supervising judicial reforms in Bulgaria while at the same time stoking the corruption with European cash.

‘If the EU is unable to guarantee minimum standards of rule of law in a member state as weak as Bulgaria…what is it good for?’ said Ivanov. ‘This level of state capture in Bulgaria was only made possible by the easy drug of EU funds.’

At the heart of the crisis for the EU is the absence of judicial independence. ‘The problem is that the Bulgarian prosecutor general has enormous power and generates disproportionate influence within the Supreme Judicial Council and over judges’, said Toby Cadman, a barrister at Guernica 37 chambers who has worked in Bulgaria. ‘The consolidation of this unchecked power has resulted in the erosion of judicial independence. Like Russia, the erosion of the rule of law is the first casualty of a descent into autocracy’.

The Prosecutor General, Ivan ‘The Cap’ Geshev, was ‘elected’ unopposed in 2019. Unusually, his appointment sparked nightly angry protests amid allegations he lacked independence and integrity to hold such an important position. The protesters called for his resignation alleging ‘an oligarchic mafia has captured the state and has extended its reach deep into institutions such as the judiciary, media and the security services’ and was above the law. Recent opinion polls showed 80 per cent of Bulgarians regarded corruption as widespread.

In July 2020, thousands of protesters returned to the streets of Sofia when state prosecutors marched into the offices of the president. They regarded this unprecedented raid on the head of state as a ploy to divert attention away from the lack of investigations into oligarchs for corruption and revenge for his attempts to block the appointment of the prosecutor general the previous year. ‘A sitting prosecutor general can abuse his office or commit other crimes with impunity’, said the legal scholar Radosveta Vassileva. ‘Essentially, this body is one of the main threats to the rule of law in Bulgaria’.

The all-powerful role of the prosecutor general as an enforcer is illustrated by the targeting of Nexo, a leading global FinTech company that manages over $2 billion (£1.6 billion) in assets for five million people across 200 countries. Since January 2023, Nexo and its employees in Bulgaria have been under siege by the prosecutor. ‘It has been a coordinated attack with claims of criminal conduct based on fabricated and politically motivated allegations’, Toby Cadman told me. ‘The prosecutor general tried to recruit international law enforcement partners to add legitimacy to the investigation against Nexo and its directors in an improper process’.


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The tactic of ‘international cooperation’ failed and so the prosecutor general reacted by alleging a domestically orchestrated conspiracy. ‘They made highly spurious allegations, breaching the presumption of innocence, and effectively removing any prospect for those under investigation to receive a fair trial’, said Cadman. ‘The reality is that Nexo’s directors were targeted due to their support for the political opposition, reform and end to corruption’.

Bulgaria faces a critical watershed moment which has serious ramifications for the credibility of the EU. US Congressman Warren Davidson even called the prosecutor general a threat ‘to the stability of Nato’. It is a state that uncannily resembles Russia in the early years of Putin when the rule of law was abused to target businessmen who opposed his political agenda. Now that the Cold War has been revived, Bulgaria has become – like Russia – a mafia state.

WRITTEN BY
Mark Hollingsworth
Mark Hollingsworth is the author of ‘Londongrad – From Russia with Cash’. His new book, ‘Agents of Influence – How the KGB Subverted Western Democracies’, will be published by Oneworld this April.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/like-putins-russia-bulgaria-has-become-a-mafia-state/

chorbalan

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May 2, 2023, 12:55:57 AM5/2/23
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On Mon, 1 May 2023 19:34:07 -0700 (PDT), Dimitar Gueorguiev wrote:

> a struggle between autocracy and democracy –
> something which resonates uncannily today in Ukraine.

Украйна е демокрация? Ай сиктир! Тя е много по-зле от България в това отношение.

"it is no surprise that Bulgaria is ambivalent and reluctant in its
support for Ukraine"

А ето и къде го стяга чепика тоя тиквар - авторът.

"Like Russia, Bulgaria has descended into a mafia state."

А милата му Украйна не е?

"by the targeting of Nexo,"

Тия ги глобиха и изгониха от Америка.

"Mark Hollingsworth"

Тоя е сол-ташак на Сорос.


Nick

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May 2, 2023, 1:12:26 AM5/2/23
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що си губиш времето да им обясняваш очевадни неща? то стига да се погледне
определението за автокрация за да ти стане ясно, че не си струва четенето
по-нататък.

то и сравнението с русия е смешно и нелепо, ама явно толкова си може
авторът, а и неговите читатели.

--
«地 球 誕 生 在 牛 市 的 小 時 — Earth is born in the Bull's hour»
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