A commentary in one of Bulgaria’s newspapers recently referred to the two highly controversial, to say the least, businessmen from the small town of Doupnitsa as the Brothers Grimm. To clarify for those hot off the plane, these two businessmen are often referred to in the media as the Galevi brothers, although they are unrelated.
The two ‘brothers’ - Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov – pulled their latest trick by saying they wanted to run for Parliament at the July 5 elections. It was their lawyer who announced the news because both ‘brothers’ have been under arrest since January when police finally managed to gather enough evidence to detain them.
And now, when they were supposed to sit quietly and wait for their trial to begin (one is accused of intimidating a journalist and the other of organising a criminal group) they said they would seek election as MPs. Following recent amendments, the law allows them to do this. Anyone without a criminal conviction can stand for Parliament and since the two are only charged - and not yet convicted - one of the ‘brothers’, Plamen Galev, has decided to exploit his right to run for office. In keeping with the law an initiative committee was quickly formed and a 15 000 leva deposit filed.
All that remains for the committee to do is gather at least 10 000 signatures supporting his nomination. This will hardly be a problem because a few months ago Doupnitsa’s citizens gathered about 16 000 signatures over a couple of days. So imagine what will happen if by some miracle Galev does win a seat in Parliament. His lawyer was quoted as saying that he would relinquish his seat - and therefore immunity from prosecution - should he win the post. Nevertheless, it would be a daring attempt to influence the judiciary because this would doubtless be used by his defence. I can almost see the line "people trust me, you don’t" as his defence slogan. Indeed, if he were elected, he’d be entitled to say this.
Winning the MP seat is one thing but campaigning for it is something else. According to his lawyer, Galev must be freed for the duration of the election campaign in order to have equal footing alongside the other candidates. This means that he would get 21 days’ reprieve from his cell, allegedly to ‘campaign’ in Doupnitsa, his home constituency. I can’t wait to see his first election stunt and posters. Probably, it would read something like "vote for me or..."
The fairytale, however, doesn’t end with Galevi. Two other well known defendants have decided to run for Parliament in their wake. Father and son, Vesselin and Hristo Danov, have also said they wanted to stand for election. Arrested in 2008 on accusations of money laundering and forcing women into prostitution, Vesselin Danov has been trying to convince the judge for months that he has a degenerative illness and that he should be released. It seems that by running for Parliament he has found the answer to his prayers.
Just like in a fairytale.