There should be a line somewhere saying that public officials in Bulgaria must be appointed on condition that they don't have a brother. All developments in the country over the past four years suggest that having a sister is way more lucrative than having a brother or not having one at all.

The latest example is the dismissal of Ivan Drashkov, deputy head of the State Agency for National Security (SANS). He was released several days after Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov said that a company that used to belong to Drashkov's brother, Petar Drashkov, was involved in a property scheme worth millions of euro. Borissov claimed that Drashkov's brother's former company forged Borissov's signature to get the title deed for an attractive property plot in Sofia.

Borissov was careful not to say that Drashkov's brother had committed a crime. He also sent all documents to the Prosecutor-General's Office, as the law requires. “I know Ivan Drashkov and I’ve always had respect for him from the time when both of us were part of the Interior Ministry and I’m sure he wouldn’t use his current position at SANS to influence the investigation against his brother,” Borissov said. For better or worse, however, Drashkov was dismissed.

Another good example of the close link between brothers in Bulgaria is the much debated case of one Vesselin Georgiev, who earlier this year resigned from his post as head of the former National Road Infrastructure Fund (NRIF) responsible for distributing European Union funds for road construction and other projects in Bulgaria.

As the media first reported the company headed by Georgiev's brother Emil Georgiev has received much of the funding allocated by the NRIF. “You don't mean that my brother should stay out of business just because I am head of the NRIF?” was Vesselin Georgiev's response to whether his brother's company benefiting from NRHI represented a conflict of interest. In the end, Vesselin Georgiev had to resign, leaving Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev explaining to Bulgarians why the European Commission froze about 800 million euro in funding to Bulgaria because of suspected corruption. 

Stanishev’s case is interesting in its own right. He also has a brother – the well-known architect Georgii Stanishev –who has a successful design bureau. The Prime Minister is probably one of the few politicians in the country who has never been involved in corruption scandals and has so far has been spared by both opposition and the media. There was just one (failed) attempt by a right-wing opposition party to link the two brothers to an alleged conflict of interest related to one of Georgii Stanishev's developing projects on the Black Sea.

At local level, having a brother has also proved to be more damaging than positive. Two months ago, the media reported that the company that was awarded the contract to build the new control tower of Sofia airport was partly owned by Kalin Dikov, brother of Petar Dikov who is the chief architect of Sofia municipalities and the person responsible for everything that is built in the city.

In this situation the most popular Bulgarian politician at present, Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov, seems completely safe because he has a sister. And until now not a single scandal involving a public official in Bulgaria was related to his or her sister. So look at your family and plan well if you want to enter Bulgarian politics.