Bulgarian Culture Minister Calls on Fellow Ethnic Turks to Vote for Their Own

Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov, who is from ethnic Turkish background, wants Bulgarian Muslims to stop voting under party orders. File photo

Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov, who is from ethnic Turkish background, appealed to all Bulgarian Turks to vote for themselves in the presidential and local elections runoff Sunday.

Rashidov followed in the footsteps of Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, in using Election Day, when campaigning under any form is banned, to attack their opponents from the ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and the left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)

Both labeled as shameful the now-notorious "Dogan Kiss." In the evening of October 23, after polls closed in the first round of the elections, DPS leader, Ahmed Dogan, promises his party's support to BSP presidential candidate, Ivaylo Kalfin, "only against one nice kiss."

On Sunday, Rashidov called Bulgarian Turks some of the most dignified citizens of the country, and begged them to stop being slaves of millionaires who ask them to vote for those responsible for their plight during the so-called Revival Process – in the mid-80s of the last century, the former Communist Regime forced Muslims to change their names to Christian ones; repressed those who refused, and triggered a mass exodus to Turkey.

The Culture Minister declared that as a representative of the Turkish minority and proud to be a Bulgarian citizen, he would never accept the absurd situation to have Bulgarian Turks remain under the mentorship of a gang of Communists and Communist State Security agents.

"I believe in the honesty and values of Bulgarian Turks and I do not want for them to remain hostages of their torturers. For this reason, I believe they will vote today for their own, for the well-being of Bulgaria and for the future of their children," Rashidov said, pointing out the positive energy and great relations between Borisov and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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