The DPS will fight a second Revival Process in Bulgaria
Adelina Marini, June 18, 2009
Instead of specific proposals about improving certain fields of the Bulgarian economy, the DPS* announced that its main priority for the Parliamentary elections on the 5th of July would be the tolerance. Instead of talking about transparency because the situation of the farmers who are their main supporters, hasn't changed for decades or about the circles of companies (according to the admission of the DPS leader Ahmed Dogan some years ago), the leaders of the party just said: "We say "No" to the extreme nationalism! We say "No" to the attempts for recovery of recurrences of the totalitarian past! We say "No" to the ideas of a new, although softer, revival process**!" In a situation of financial and economic crisis in the country unification is necessary also said one of the deputies of Dogan Lyutvi Mestan, according to the press centre of the party.
*DPS (Movement for rights and freedoms) has been created in the beginning of Bulgaria's transition (the early 1990s) to democracy and market economy as a party that represents the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. Therefore a large part of the producers of tobacco and other farmers with Turkish ethnic origin or just Muslims became the main supporters of the Movement. Now the party wants to be perceived as just a Bulgarian party and even became a member of the European Liberals - ALDE. The party has participated in most of the coalition governments in Bulgaria for the last 20 years and is one of the most nontransparent parties in the country.
**The Revival Process is the period when during the totalitarian rule in the end of 1980s the communist government decided to forcefully change the names of the ethnic Turkish minority into Bulgarian names. This led to mass immigration to neighbouring Turkey, leaving hundreds of houses deserted in the south-east of Bulgaria. The leader of the DPS Ahmed Dogan often threatens the public by saying that his party is the only one to protect the ethnic peace in Bulgaria which, against the background of the situation in the Balkans, sounds more scary than it actually is.