By Krassen Nikolov
The far-right pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane (Renaissance) ended its election campaign with a video, posted on its Facebook account that threatens journalists to be shot. The video contains a scene from ‘The Servant Of The People’, a popular Ukrainian TV series. The scene shows the leading actor, recently elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, shooting at lawmakers with two automatic weapons.
Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov publicly confirmed that his party is the author of the video. He explained that this is a message to media such as RFE/RL funded by the US Congress.
As media standards in Bulgaria and Romania are in free fall, Free Europe recently resumed its service for both countries.
“With this video, we say that there are media in Bulgaria like RFE/RL that are working to destroy the Bulgarian state. This video targets media like yours. This clip is not a pre-election one. It is against RFE/RL,” Kostadinov added.
The video contains the message of the party: “Vazrazhdane. Only we can”. The nationalists make everything clear. They write: “The clip shows only Love – the love of the people. Love needs sacrifices.” According to the Bulgarian law social networks campaigns are not regulated by the Central Electoral Commission.
Kostadinov’s party was founded five years ago. It insists on the exit of Bulgaria from NATO and the EU and the reorientation of the country towards Russia. Its leader Kostadin Kostadinov is a municipal councilor in Varna. At the last parliamentary elections Vazrazhdane got a little over 1% of the votes.
The Bulgarian office of the Association of European Journalists urged the Prosecutor’s Office to start criminal proceedings against Kostadinov and ask the court to close the far-right party. For the call for violence Bulgaria’s Penal Code provides up to 6 years in prison. So far the prosecution have not started any proceedings.
“The shooting of opponents and journalists is not part of the democratic means and methods. It rather gives the feeling of aiming at violently taking state power,” the association said.
Bulgarian nationalists rely mainly on an anti-democratic and anti-European campaign in an effort to get place in the European Parliament. One of the most active candidates of VMRO is Carlos Contrera (a Bulgarian of Cuban origin). “Multiculturalism is a disease that has to be exterminated,” he calls in the social networks. The VMRO election list leader Angel Dzhambazki, who is now an MEP, explains: “Multiculturalism in Bulgaria means gypsification, and in Europe – arabization.”
Carlos Contrera promises to work as an MEP for the liberalizing the regime for guns possession. Guns that Vazrazhdane wants to kill journalists with. At the end of the campaign VMRO has the support of the 6% of the voters. And there is a real chance for Angel Dzhambazki to get another mandate as an MEP.
On Friday, two days before the election, offensive posters against the list leader of the of the liberal pro-European coalition Democratic Bulgaria were put up in Sofia. The message against Radan Kanev is “Asshole, you are our flag,” and “Voting for Radan Kanev we get homosexuality, perversions, third sex, gender ideology.” Such posters have all the signs of Russian propaganda on the social networks that have been flooding Europe over the last few years.
VMRO is the party that most actively uses the terms of the Istanbul Convention in its campaign. VMRO candidate for MEP Alexander Urumov (who is head of a department at the Ministry of Defense) has published a video entirely against the Istanbul Convention, a document that aims to protect women from domestic violence. Urumov explains that gender ideology is being supported in North America, the UK and the EU because it is paid by George Soros. The VMRO candidate says that this ideology is not spread in Bulgaria because the party is fighting against it.