Movement for Rights and Freedoms
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS / ДПС ( Bulgarian Движение за права и свободи, Dwischenie sa Prawa i Swobodi, Turkish: Hak ve Özgürlükler Hareketi ( HOH ) ) is a liberal party in Bulgaria, primarily the interests of the Turkish minority represents. It is often simply referred to as " Turks Party." The Turkish minority forms, together with other Muslim minorities, such as the Pomaks and Roma the core of their electorate. The party is known for several cases of corruption. It was officially founded in 1990 as a party. Since January 19, 2013 Ljutwi Mestan is chairman of the party.
Since the 2013 parliamentary elections it provides, together with the xenophobic party Ataka and the Socialist Party ( ex-communists ) the Oresharski government.
History
The party grew out of the underground organization of Turkish National Liberation Movement in Bulgaria ( Bulg Турско национално - освободително движение в България ) associated with terrorist means against the policy of the Turkish minority Bulgarisierung resisted in part. Among other things, she is blamed for the attack on 9 March 1985 at the train Sofia - Burgas Bunowo station, which claimed seven lives, including three children.
The party Movement for Rights and Freedoms was established in 1990 with Ahmed Dogan as party chairman and Yenal Bekir as party secretary. Ahmed Dogan and other party leaders were at this time active employees of the Bulgarian State Security Committee. Many of the members of the DPS were previously active in the Independent Society for the Protection of Human Rights, however, distanced themselves from it, as Rumen Wodenitscharow (at this time active employee of the State Security ) took over its presidency and the party no longer on the Rights of the Bulgarian Muslims began.
The DPS achieved since its inception consistently stable results at 7 % of the vote and 20 of the 240 parliamentary seats and put so usually the third largest group after the conservatives and the socialists. In the 2001 elections the movement with 7.5 % of the vote reached 21 seats and came under the former Tsar Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha in the coalition government with the National Movement Simeon the Second one. In the 2005 elections it made significant gains and reached 12.7% and 34 seats, which was also due to the low turnout of non-Muslim Bulgarian population. Thus, the DPS was in turn part of the government, this time with the Socialists and the Movement for Simeon. However, their participation in government was accompanied by several corruption scandals. 2009 Deputy Interior Minister Rauf Mustafa had to evacuate from the DPS office, because he had demanded 50,000 leva (approx. € 24,000 ) bribe from a businessman ..
The DPS is a member of Liberal International and the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party since 2003. Thus, it is also contrary to the allegations to be a purely ethnic party that would not be allowed under Bulgarian law, although it is referred to by the large part of the Bulgarian population as the Turks Party. Traditionally, come with choices up to 100,000 votes for the DPS from living in Turkey and Pomaks Bulgarian-Turkish community, which influenced the election results considerably.
During the campaign for the parliamentary elections of 2009, Dogan himself described as the tool, in whose hands all the power was concentrated, while the deputies possessed in Parliament has no power: "I'm in the government the tool that the companies in the country allots their portions "..
In the 2009 elections, the ruling parties have in the run-up to the election trying to manipulate by the vote of the Bulgarian nationals residing outside the country, mainly in Europe and the USA, has been greatly limited. So 259 polling stations were set up around the world, for example, of which only 123 were in Turkey, where approximately 240,000 ethnic Germans from Bulgaria live permanently; in Greece, however, there were only three polling stations for about 380,000 Bulgarian citizens; in Spain 16 Bulgarian for approximately 35,000 residents; in the U.S. 15 polling stations for approximately 800,000 Bulgarians in Moldova 1 for about 30,000.
The statements Dogan and the years-long electoral manipulations led to an anti - Dogan mood, which part of the other political parties of the country affected the DPS in the form of political isolation and to an ethnic confrontation between Bulgarians and Turks.
The DPS gained over 600,000 votes and win the remaining five seats after the majoritarian principle for yourself. Thus she became the third strongest party in parliament and reached the best result in its history. One reason for the result achieved was inflamed by the statements of Dogan polarization, on the one hand led to an anti - DPS mood among the parties of the majority population, and secondly in a consolidation and revitalization of the core electorate of the party. So could count the DPS to the voices of Islamic minorities (ethnic Turks and Pomaks ) and the Roma in the country, as well as on the Bulgarian -Turkish and pomakische exile community. 87 percent of Turks living in the country chose the DPS. The DPS was able to gain more than 100,000 votes from abroad for themselves, most importantly, they chose to live in Turkey Bulgarian -Turkish and pomakische community. In the elections the party was accused of vote-rigging again in a big way in the areas under its domination.
After the parliamentary elections of 2009 it was announced that the DPS Group in the Bulgarian parliament has the most employees of the former communist secret service (short DS). In November 2009, the immunity of deputies Günai Sefer and Mithat Tabakow was lifted from the DPS Group in the Bulgarian Parliament, as was determined against them, and brought charges of corruption and embezzlement of public funds in May 2010.
2011
Isolation of DPS was also clearly in 2010 when the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not met during his official visit to Bulgaria in early October with representatives of the party. This happened for the first time in the history of the party. In January 2011, the Member of the Central Council and former number two of the party, Kasim Dal made serious allegations against the political style of the party leader Ahmed Dogan and the compounds of the party to the structures of the former communist secret. As a result, he was expelled from the party at the party congress on February 20, 2011. Here, the structures of the party in Bulgaria put behind their chairman, all the structures of the Party in Turkey and the MP Korman Ismailov, also a member of the Central Council, supported in turn Dal and demanded the resignation Dogan. Dogan himself had no public appearances since the 2009 elections.
The end of April the deputy Ismailov was excluded from the Group of the DPS in parliament and shortly after the party. In early June the party membership of six other supporters of Kasim Dal and his policy was canceled. Among the excluded were the four representatives of the party in Turkey and members of the Central Council of the party, and Veselin Penev, longtime leader of the liberal party-affiliated foundation and Liberalna Integrazija.
In July 2011, the former mayor of Velingrad and Member of Parliament of the DPS, Fidel Baew was sentenced by a prison sentence for mismanagement.
2013
On suspicion of money laundering and tax fraud, the public prosecutor's office in November 2013 against Hristo Bisserow. He was dismissed as Vice President of the Parliament on its own request on 7 November 2013. On November 3, 2013 Bisserow had already resigned from all political offices and the DPS membership " for personal reasons ". Known as the "gray cardinal " politician and his stepson should have paid, among other money in accounts in the Seychelles.
Criticism of the party
2006 declared Ahmed Dogan public corruption in a debate that there are around him and his party a " group of companies " ( Bulg " обръч от фирми "). In the fall of 2007, he said after the regional elections that " buying votes is a European phenomenon " and this is quite normal when you want to win an election. In both cases, was not a legal proceeding.
Although the party presents itself as liberal and open to other population groups, it is regularly accused before and after each election in Bulgaria, that they not only mobilized 15,000 to 20,000 Bulgarian-born Turks from Turkey, but also organizes brings to the polls. This was confirmed in part by former members of the party, so by the former Minister Mehmet Dikme occasion of the mayoral elections 2007 Ardino and Kardzhali.
Chairman
- Ahmed Dogan: 1990 - January 19, 2013
- Ljutwi Mestan: since January 19, 2013