Bulgarian Nationalist Leader to Head Parliament Anticorruption Committee

Ataka MPs fronted by party leader Volen Siderov on their way to meet Sofia City Prosecutor in the wake of the Sofia mosque incindent. Photo by BGNES

Volen Siderov, leader of the extreme nationalist Ataka party, will be the new head of the Bulgarian Parliament's Committee on the Fight against Corruption.

Until recently, the chair of the committee was Ataka MP Valentin Nikolov, who nevertheless resigned from his political group after Ataka activists attacked Muslims at the Sofia mosque during Friday prayer on May 20.

The position of chair of the Anti-corruption Committee has been given to Ataka following an aggreement among political groups at the start of the Parliament's mandate in July 2009.

Commentators argue that the new position will give Siderov a good venue to launch criticisms and attacks against the center-right GERB cabinet of PM Boyko Borisov.

Until recently, Ataka has been consistently supportive of the cabinet, but relations between it and GERB have soured of late.

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