New parliamentary elections and the revocation of all privatisation deals of the past 15 years were demanded by Volen Siderov, leader of the ultra-nationalist party Ataka, on March 3.

Ataka organised a rally in Sofia on the day of Bulgaria’s national holiday.

“We are taking a new course towards special elections and a march to power,” Siderov told party supporters who had gathered in the square around St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

Siderov said that he would seek personal accountability from every national “traitor”.

To the music of Wagner, Siderov said that Bulgaria was not governed by Bulgarians and it was the destiny of Ataka to return it to the Bulgarians.

“Those who govern now are afraid of their people and they do not deserve power,” he said. He said that on Thursday, MPs for Ataka had submitted a draft bill to the secretariat of Parliament calling for the re-nationalisation of everything privatised to date.

“Bulgarians today live 50 times more poorly than the average European living standard and this cannot be called progress,” Siderov said during his nearly 40-minute speech. “We should be ready with live chains and civil protests from here on.”

The rally was preceded by a march, which included Ataka supporters brought to Sofia with buses from various parts of the country, as well as supporters from the Bulgarian minority in Bosilegrad (Serbia).

“Those who govern now are afraid of their people and they do not deserve power. That is why we have to drive them out of Parliament,” Siderov said.

According to Ataka, the closely guarded rally was attended by 50 000 people. According to the police, however, they numbered no more than 8000.

Deputy Interior Minister Kamen Penkov and General Roumen Stoyanov, head of the Sofia Interior Ministry Directorate, attended the rally because of concern that there would be provocations and clashes. No incidents were reported.

Ataka party is a relatively new political formation, dating to spring 2005, described by analysts as radical and nationalistic.

In the June 25 2005 Parliamentarian elections, Ataka won 8.14 per cent of the vote, and became the fourth-largest group in Parliament.

The party often speaks against the participation of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) in the Government. The MRF mostly represents the Turkish minority in Bulgaria who, together with the Roma minority, are often the subject of racial slurs from Siderov.

The MRF is part of a tripartite Government coalition with the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and National Movement Simeon II (NMSII), with BSP leader Sergei Stanishev as Prime Minister.

In the days before the rally, Prime Minister Stanishev had expressed discontent with the decision by Sofia Mayor Boiko Borissov to permit Ataka to hold its rally close to the venue and the hour of the official state ceremony scheduled for the same day.

The whole week the prime minister, President Georgi Purvanov, the Speaker of Parliament and MPs voiced warnings and fanned expectations of provocations and clashes.
On March 4, Yunal Lyutfi, deputy leader of the MRF and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, told a news conference that Ataka lacked the potential to precipitate early elections.

Ataka was merely “a bubble that will burst within a few weeks,” Lyutfi said.

“Bulgarians’ living standards are improving slowly but steadily. Every Bulgarian will feel the change within a year at most,” Lyutfi said.

The same day, Ivelin Nikolov, deputy chair of the BSP Supreme Council, said in the city of Silistra that Ataka’s ideas and intentions had copied Hitler’s national socialism.

Nikolov said that the state should find out who was behind Ataka, suggesting that it was backed by companies from within the grey economy trying to block Bulgaria’s EU accession.

“I am convinced that Ataka, its leader and its parliamentary group have no financial, professional or ideological resources to organise on their own the things they have been doing,” Nikolov said.

On March 6, Milen Velchev, an NMSII MP and former finance minister, said in an interview with the Bulgarian-language press that the danger arising from Ataka should not be underestimated.
“We are very worried that society might be directed on to the wrong path and everything accomplished over the past 15 years might be demolished,” Velchev said.