Skeletons are being hauled out of closets to rattle around Bulgaria’s political landscape, and there is no small amount of mutual mud-slinging going on too.
 
The torrent of allegations by Boiko Borissov’s Government against its predecessors, of irresponsible and in some cases allegedly criminal misspending, has become a flood. However, the socialist former incumbents have been trying to make some mud to stick to Borissov’s party, GERB, as well.
 
Recent days saw one controversy that, for once, involved not the spending of money but the failure to spend it.
 
On November 24 2009, the National Audit Office said in a report that the Fund for medical treatment abroad of Bulgarian children had failed to spend 40 per cent of its money, leading to media reports implying that the Fund was complicit in prolonging the suffering of seriously ill children.
 
The Fund’s head, Nikolai Dobrev, vehemently denied negligence, but after hours of speaking out to the media, Dobrev – while continuing his denials – resigned, a move swiftly welcomed publicly by Borissov.
 
The matter went out of the headlines rapidly, considering that it had to fight for elbow room against a crowd of controversies.
 
One enduring row involves one Krassimir Georgiev, a Pleven man popularly referred to as "Krasyo" an alleged trader in influence who supposedly had been in telephone contact with a large number of members of the judiciary and with politicians.
 
Earlier media reports alleged that "Krasyo" had a sliding scale of fees for arranging appointments to judicial posts of varying degrees of seniority.
 
A number of magistrates have been named as having been in contact with him, and on November 25, ultra-nationalist Ataka party leader Volen Siderov became the latest politician to vent allegations in connection with Krasyo.
 
Without citing his sources, Siderov gave journalists in Parliament a list of members of the parties that had constituted the coalition that ruled Bulgaria from autumn 2005 until early summer 2009 – the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the National Movement for Stability and Progress – who, according to Siderov, were in "Krasyo’s" telephone directory.
 
As reported by Bulgarian National Television (BNT), the BSP list included former interior minister Roumen Petkov, Kiril Dobrev, Kornelia Ninova, Boiko Radoev, Radoslav Ilievski and Stoyan Prodanov.
 
The NMSP list included Milen Velchev, who was finance minister in the Saxe-Coburg government from 2001 to 2005, along with Georgi Velchev, Dimitur Ivanovski, Krassimir Katev, Gati al-Djeburi, Lyubka Kachakova, Kamelia Kasabova, Kalin Rogadev and Teodora Drenski.
 
The MRF list was Kassim Dal, Nesrin Uzun, Petya Raeva, Lyudmil Georgiev, Lyutvin Mestan and Korman Ismailov.
 
Siderov said that he wanted to meet prosecutors to discuss the matter.
 
Throughout the "Krasyo" affair, those named in the saga either have denied having had any contact with him or have said that there was an acquaintance, but no wrongdoing was involved. (It may be added that the fact of inclusion in a directory cannot necessarily imply contact; not everyone with a Yellow Pages has called a plumber, for example.)
 
Ismailov told BNT that he had once met Krasyo in a bar while with a group of friends, and that was the extent of the acquaintance, Ninova denied having had any contact with Krasyo.
 
The list in the possession of the Prosecutor-General’s office and Parliament’s committee against corruption had been checked and her name was not there, Ninova said.
 
Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev said on November 26 that there was a great deal of speculation about Krasyo’s contacts, and said that it was disappointing that names had been mentioned that were not among the official list of contacts.
 
It was unlikely that a list of contacts would produce new evidence because it added no information of the topics of any conversations, Boris Velchev said.
 
On November 19, Yane Yanev, the chairperson of Parliament’s committee against corruption and leader of the right-wing Law Order and Justice party, said that there were 1040 names in Krasyo’s directory and more would come to light after further investigation.
 
Meanwhile, on November 25, Dnevnik said that an investigation by the Agriculture Ministry had found that between 2006 and 2008, close to 80 per cent of state land had been cultivated without contracts and without fees being charged for municipal services. Of 300 000ha managed by the state, about 230 000ha were used without contracts by people who had not been chosen through a tender process, the ministry said.
 
This was a mere aside as the game of hunt-the-former-minister continued.