Plamen Yuroukov, the leader of Bulgaria’s centre-right minority opposition party the Union of Democratic Forces, has vowed to seek re-election as leader of the party later this year in spite of allegations against him of abuse of Sapard pre-accession funds and of links to the country’s communist-era secret services.

Bulgarian news agency BTA, reporting from the UDF conference in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna, quoted Yuroukov as saying on July 12 2008 that support for him among party members was even greater than before the smear attempts were made.

Yuroukov, who denies all allegations against him, filed papers with Bulgaria’s Sapard Agency on July 11 showing that his company had followed all procedures and requirements for Sapard funding approval.

Bulgaria’s Focus news agency reported that Yuroukov, when filing the papers, alleged that the smears against him emanated from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the party led and supported mainly by Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent. The MRF is a member of the current tripartite coalition Government and was a member of the previous ruling coalition.

Yuroukov said that his company had signed the contract with Sapard before he became UDF leader.

The MRF has denied Yuroukov’s allegation.
 
On July 2 2008, in an interview with Bulgaria’s Nova Televizia, Yuroukov rejected allegations that he had ties to the secret services.

The UDF, founded in late 1989 as Bulgarian Communist Party rule collapsed, won a substantial victory in parliamentary elections after the BCP’s successor, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, led the country into deep economic crisis in 1996/97. However, the UDF government headed by Ivan Kostov was in turn swept into opposition by the June 2001 victory of what was then known as the National Movement Simeon II, now the National Movement for Stability and Progress.

After a series of reverses and in-fighting under the leadership of Kostov’s successor, former foreign minister Nadezhda Mihailova, the leadership was won in 2005 by former president Petar Stoyanov, an old political rival of Kostov, who in turn had by then quit the UDF to form his own right-wing party.

When the UDF continued to turn in a lacklustre performance under Stoyanov, 2007 saw Yuroukov transfer from the private sector to public life to lead the UDF. A sole indication of a turnabout in political fortunes, however small, was an agreement between the UDF and Kostov’s Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria to back a joint candidate in mayoral elections in Sofia in 2007.

Most opinion polls give the UDF some chance of surmounting the threshold for seats in Parliament in elections scheduled for 2009. Boiko Borissov, leader of GERB, the party predicted to win the largest share of seats, has indicated openness to a coalition government with other right-wing parties.