Rightist MP: Lustration Act to Remove Bulgaria President Parvanov

Rightist MP Asen Agov is head of a working group to draft a Lustration Act that may lead to the removal of President Parvanov from office. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Parliament is very likely to adopt a Lustration Act (i.e. a law limiting the participation of former communists), which would lead to the removal from office of President, Georgi Parvanov.

This has been announced by rightist Member of Parliament, Asen Agov, in an interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency).

Agov, who is of the 14 MPs of the Blue Coalition supporting the government of the GERB party, has said a working group of GERB and Blue deputies had been working on a new Lustration Act prohibiting former collaborators of the State Security (i.e. the secret police of the communist regime) from holding government positions in the future, and forcing all those that already do so to resign.

Bulgaria’s President Georgi Parvanov has been exposed as a former State Security collaborator. Such a Lustration Act is also going to affect Bozhidar Dimitrov, Minister for Bulgarians Abroad in the GERB government, who is also known to have been a State Security agent.

Even though Dimitrov as a GERB Minister is going to be affected, MP Agov has told Novinite.com that the Blue Coalition and GERB were very likely to decide to go ahead with a Lustration Act, and to muster enough parliamentary support to pass it.

“Lustration means “illuminating, casting light on something”. Our society needs this casting of light in order to break once and for all with its communist past,” MP Agov has said.

A recent publication of the 168 Chasa Weekly claimed that the Lustration Act which is being drafted is a manifestation of the desire of the rightist parties to get rid of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, a former Chair of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, who allegedly has been interfering with the work of the executive branch.

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