site.btaContinue the Change Chair Vassilev: Signatures Will Be Collected for New No-Confidence Motion

The necessary signatures to table a new motion of no confidence in the government will be collected, CC Chair Assen Vassilev said in Varna on Thursday. Vassilev later joined Thursday’s protest against the continued detention of the city’s mayor, Blagomir Kotsev.

Vassilev noted that discussions are still ongoing regarding the specific grounds for demanding the government’s resignation. He explained that it might encompass all the “outrages taking place and the fact that, in practice, the State is not being governed by the Council of Ministers.”

"The Prime Minister is not even aware of the whereabouts of his ministers, and the State is being controlled by Borissov and Peevski, who have taken over not just the Council of Ministers but every institution," Vassilev said.

He added that incomes are frozen while prices are rising for electricity, water, road vignettes, tolls, and even household appliances. The poverty line has risen by 20%, and once again there are 1.4 million people who will have to choose between bread and medicines at the end of the month, Vassilev said. According to him, the number of such people had drastically decreased in the previous three years. “In 2022 we had fewer than 100,000 people below the poverty line; now it is back to 1.4 million,” he said.

Vassilev said the patience of Bulgarians is running out due to the “circus acts” being displayed each day in order to cover up theft. He recalled that on Thursday, GERB-UDF, There Is Such a People, BSP – United Left, and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) – New Beginning overrode the President’s veto of the law for the disposal of State property. “They hid the list of properties, hid the auctions, now they have overturned the veto and nothing stops them from starting to sell. Regardless of what they say on television, they do something different in Parliament,” Vassilev said.

On the detention of Varna mayor Blagomir Kotsev, he described what is happening in the case as “absolute lawlessness.” Vassilev recalled that over a week ago, a request to alter the detention measure for the mayor was submitted to the prosecution service but still has not reached the court. The prosecution service claims that the Anti-Corruption Commission has not provided them with the relevant documents, Vassilev explained. He insisted that if the prosecution service does not fulfil its legal obligations by the end of the week, he and his colleagues will go to the Anti-Corruption Commission, collect the documents, deliver them to the prosecution service and then to the court.

Blagomir Kotsev was detained on July 8. At the time, the prosecution service announced that the anti-corruption commission was conducting a raid in Varna under the supervision of the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office. The following day, the Sofia City Prosecution Office announced that four people had been charged and detained for 72 hours in connection with a corruption investigation in Varna.

On July 11, the Sofia City Court began examining the detention measures of Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev, councillors Yordan Kateliev and Nikolay Stefanov, and businessman Ivaylo Marinov. Hours later, the court ruled to keep all four in custody. On July 18, the Sofia Appellate Court upheld the decision, leaving Kotsev and the two councillors in custody. The court released businessman Ivaylo Marinov on his own recognizance, citing insufficient evidence linking him to the other three.