Few would disagree that, in its first two years in business, there has been something rotten in the state of Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (SANS).
But opinions are divided about whether it should be shut down and started again from scratch, or restructured in its current format.

Tihomir Bezlov of the NGO Centre for the Study of Democracy is considered an expert on the topic of organised crime in Bulgaria. In an October 27 interview with Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily, Bezlov said that at the moment, it was too difficult to reach accurate conclusions on what was really happening in SANS.

"At the moment we have an avalanche of all kinds of facts and statements, and it is difficult to know what is really happening," Bezlov told Dnevnik.

"All this is taking place when the country is in an extremely difficult state, when the optimistic ideas about filling in the gaps in the Budget are not happening (the Government had to table its 2010 draft Budget in Parliament by the end of October). We are not discussing the Budget but scandals," he said.     

"I am starting to think that all this noise is some kind of way to distract the public’s attention from the fact that people are not getting paid on time."

As for the two SANS reports on organised crime which appeared on the internet, Bezlov said that he was surprised about the low quality of SANS expertise.
"I had my doubts about how bad things were with SANS’ analytical work, and that it relied too much on newspaper articles, gossips and slanders, but what I read was beyond my worst expectations.

Everybody who knows of this kind of work and to whom I spoke, is amazed by the mediocrity of the reports."
Most media interpreted the SANS scandal as a result of the rivalry between circles of influence around SANS former head Petko Sertov and his former deputy Ivan Drashkov.

"To me the issue is not about lobbies, but about a more complicated and chaotic network of  different interests. It is obviously a matter of coalitions being formed and dissolved."
One of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s responses to the crisis was that he might shut down SANS if it did not change the way that it worked.

"It will be very difficult for Borissov to shut the agency down," Bezlov said. "We have already had the first signals about a possible counterstrike against Borissov from certain circles in SANS, who started commenting that there was corruption in Borissov’s Government. I thing these comments are a warning to Borissov about what might follow should he follow through his idea".

Bezlov was referring to a statement by Dimitar Abadjiev, an MP from the Order, Law and Justice party (OLJ), who on October 26 said that his party had started receiving tip-offs about alleged corruption in the Cabinet. This was Abadjiev’s response to hints by Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov that OLJ was SANS’ political project aimed at having its own group in Parliament so that it can influence the running of the country.

"There will be strong resistance (against shutting down SANS) and all possible lobby groups will be activated," Bezlov told Dnevnik. He said that it was possible for these groups to create a situation that would prompt an early election. "I hope that I am wrong about that," Bezlov said.

One of the questions that arose from the scandal was about who controlled SANS and who set the agency’s agenda.

"My suspicion is that SANS has been an institution working without any control," Bezlov said. "I have often wondered which part of SANS Sertov (who resigned from office after
Borissov took over as Prime Minister in July) controlled, and my personal estimate is that it was no more than 25 per cent of it. This is a problem regarding secret services all over the world, not just Bulgaria," Bezlov said.

"This problem is extremely serious on the Balkans where the transition to democracy was influenced by former communist-era secret services’ officers (Sertov was an officer in the communist state police). The person who manages to defeat this secret source of power will achieve a success that will have extremely positive economic consequences for his country," Bezlov said.