Just when one could be forgiven for thinking that the latest corruption scandal surrounding the Bulgarian government was about to be consigned to oblivion, last week demonstrated that it set in motion forces that are likely to further undermine political stability in the country for some time to come. The bête noir haunting Bulgaria’s establishment, dubbed ‘Tapegate’ by the press, came in the form of electronically eavesdropped phone calls, which featured candid conversations between Customs Agency chief Vanyo Tanov, Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov and Deputy Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov. They also notably implicated the country’s Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, who was heard blatantly abusing his position of power and asking for one of his football pals to be re-appointed as a customs official at Sofia airport, as well as pledging his support for a brewery that lacked a valid license. The revelations about corruption at the highest levels of government ensured that Borisov’s personal popularity plunged by 14%, and provoked a ‘vote of confidence’ in the Bulgarian parliament, which the latter survived in late January 2011. All things considered, this was a relatively successful outcome for the Prime Minister and the ruling GERB party, but it would seem that the political denouenement of the scandal in Bulgaria is yet to unravel.
The discord between the government and opposition reached new heights on 11 February 2011, when the respective parties began accusing each other of involvement in an explosion at the offices of the controversial anti-government newspaper Galeria on 10 February 2011. The leader of the conservative Order, Law and Justice (RZS) Party Yane Yanev even threatened to sue the Prime Minister over his thinly veiled allegations that RZS is involved in the explosion (the RZS naturally contends that GERB, which lost the most as a result of Tapegate, is to blame). The details of the investigation have not been publically disclosed, but the blast was nonetheless widely seen to be politically motivated, as the paper was also the very same one publishing the Tapegate material. The explosion furthermore coincided with the arrival of four EU commissioners to Bulgaria and understandably the government was somewhat inconvenienced at what it admitted was “a politically vulnerable time”.
This was not the first attack on the investigative press in Bulgaria in recent months, but is clearly one of the most significant. And its importance is in the context – the attack followed on from a raid on the headquarters of Bulgarian company Lev Korporatsiya, the parent company of insurer Lev Ins, which also took place late on 10 February 2011. The raid was conducted in connection with the so-called Operation Medusa (or Octopus), a government inspired initiative designed to combat organised crime in Bulgaria. Earlier that day, Operation Medusa resulted in the arrest of fourteen people, including Alexei Petrov, a former adviser to the State Agency for National Security (SANS), who is also involved with the Galeria paper and, by extension, the Tapegate scandal. Lev Korporatsiya, which reportedly specialises in kidnap insurance, among other things, had its documents, computers and electronic storage devices seized by the authorities during the raid.
Now Petrov himself is a figure of considerable interest, and not just because he appears to be prosecuted for his political affiliations, something Borisov more or less admits in public. Petrov’s critics allege that he has now been charged with heading an organised crime group that has been in operation since 1997. At the time of this alleged involvement, Petrov has participated in joint operations between the Interior Ministry, SANS and prosecutors. The group Petrov reportedly represents was involved in “serious economic offences, influence peddling, racketeering, procuring, offering of sexual services for money, money laundering and tax evasion”, according to Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who seems to be in league with Borisov. Some of the Bulgarian papers also believe that a criminal named the “the Tractor”, who is connected to the local kidnapping gang nicknamed “The Insolents”, and who Tsvetanov referred to in the aftermath of the investigations, is indeed Petrov himself.
In summary, the picture currently emerging out of Bulgaria is not very pretty: a corrupt Prime Minister, whose personal ratings are falling; a corrupt Customs Agency and corrupt Finance Ministry which are both under constant pressure from politicians protecting their own interests; the State Agency for National Security which appears to be spying on its politicians and then passing stories to the opposition press; an opposition press hounded by those it exposes; connections between opposition press and alleged criminal elements, and finally alleged questionable connections between the insurance companies selling insurance against kidnap and kidnapping gangs! The last thing we mean to argue is that all those involved in Bulgaria’s political life necessarily espouse criminal or morally dubious causes, but it is nonetheless interesting that political scandals around organised crime and corruption are basically becoming essential weaponry in Bulgarian political battles. Our prediction is that Tapegate is not over and political scandals will multiply once politically motivated lawsuits begin in earnest. Evidently enough, such scandals are not necessarily conducive for political stability in the country, but this is not to say they won’t eventually help make Bulgaria a better place.
