12 Members of Bulgaria's New Parliament Exposed as Ex-Communist Agents

The centralized archive for Communist-era files was officially opened in February 2011. Photo by BGNES

Twelve Bulgarian lawmakers-elect have been exposed as former secret agents of the Communist State Security (DS).

According to website desebg.com, which is dedicated to the secret files of the former State Security, all four parties that overcame the 4% election threshold and obtained seats in Parliament have former Communist spies in their ranks.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party and the predominantly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms will each have four MPs linked with the former Communist secret service, while the center-right GERB will have three. The nationalist Ataka (Attack) will have one lawmaker who collaborated with State Security.

Bulgaria’s single-chamber Parliament has a total of 240 seats.

In April, a check of Bulgaria's Files Commission, the panel investigating the records of the Communist State Security established that 143 candidates for parliamentary seats were DS and military intelligence agents.

Bulgaria’s previous Parliament had 11 former DS agents.

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