MINELRES: Bulgaria: At The Recent Local Elections Roma Political Parties Won Success On The Background Of Strong Anti-Roma Propaganda

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Original sender: Emil Cohen <emilcohen@mbox.cit.bg> 


HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT*

PRESS RELEASE

BULGARIA: At The Recent Local Elections Roma Political Parties Won
Success On The Background Of Strong Anti-Roma Propaganda


Sofia, November 18-19 � Last Wednesday (November 12) one day seminar
devoted to the issue �For whom the Roma are Unwanted in the Local and
Central Government of the State?� took place in Sofia. The reason for
the event was the using of anti-Roma rhetoric in few places in the
course of the pre-election competition in the current local elections in
Bulgaria. Organizers of the event were the Roma newspaper �Drom
Dromendar�, Human Rights Project and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.
About 40 prominent Roma politics, journalists and public figures (among
them were such well known names as Mr. Vassil Chaprazov, Mr. Ilia
Petrov, Mr. Petar Georgiev, as well as elected members of the city
councils from Montana, Sliven, Samokov, Razlog and others; a
representative from the supreme council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party
also participated) took part in the seminar. Prof. Evgeni Dainov (he is
one of the most popular in Bulgaria political analysts) and Ass. Prof.
Jivko Georgiev (he is Research Director of the Bulgarian branch of
�Gallup International�) also participated and delivered speeches before
the meeting. 

It was stressed at the conference that at the recent local elections
(the first round of it took part on October 26 and the second one was on
November 02) the Roma political parties and coalitions achieved a big
success. 126 Roma were elected as members of different Municipality
Councils in more than 70 municipalities on behalf of 8 Roma parties and
coalitions. Apart from this 36 Roma were elected on behalf of parties
and coalitions in which the Roma political formations were one of the
components. By that way generally 164 Roma now are elected as members of
different Municipality Councils. For comparison at the previous local
elections (1999) about 100 Roma were elected. So that the participation
of Roma in the local government increased with more than 60%. Beside
this a considerable number of Roma were elected as Mayors of many
villages that are inhabited predominantly with Roma. 

On the other part it was underlined at the seminar that for a first time
after the democratic changes at these local elections anti-Roma
suggestions were used as a weapon in the pre-election campaign. In
Samokov (when 5 Roma were elected) leaflets that called on the voters to
do not votes for one of the candidates were spread. The motive of that
appeal was that this candidate �love Roma� and if he would be elected
the city would have been transformed in �Gypsy town�. In Razlog (small
city near to Pirin mountain when two Roma were elected posters and
leaflets with anti-Roma appeals were distributed. Among them there were
slogans like these: �Let we do not allow Razlog to be transformed into
Gypsy tow�, �Let we do not allow Roma to become members of the City
Council�. In Vidin (district center on the coast of Danube river when
around 15000 Roma live) there was article in one of the local newspapers
that called �the Bulgarians� to do not vote for one of the main
candidates for Mayor, because �it would mean Gypsization of the city�.
In Sliven (big district center situated in the southeastern part of the
country) some Roma candidates were threatened. Human Rights Project has
already informed the police as well as the local Prosecutor�s office in
Samokov about these racist attacks against the Roma and will do the same
related to Razlog in the closest future. 

Most of the participants in the event stressed that the increasing of
the political influence of the Roma political parties is the true reason
for the usage of anti-Roma slogans as tools in the competition. They
underlined that the struggle against the chauvinism must become a part
of the political agitation among the Roma voters. Unfortunately there
were some participants who claimed that �there were no limits in the
political struggle, because the politics was dirty work�. Because of
this they claimed that the Roma political parties had rights to use
�dirty tricks�. But these partakers were minority among all. 

Beside this the event put the beginning of one long-term discussion
about the future of the political participation of Roma in Bulgaria.
Many people spoke about of necessity of integration of the Roma
political actors. They claimed that the relative big number of Roma
parties that took part in the elections have contributed for scattering
of the votes. Others spoke about the lack of money that was one of the
most important obstacles before the enlarging of the political
participation of the Roma. The political experts Mr. Dainov and Mr.
Georgiev spoke about the possibilities before the Roma political parties
to achieve success at the coming Parliamentary elections (these
elections should be held in the summer of 2005 but general elections
before the appointed time also are possible). They stressed on the
situation that the political milieu in Bulgaria become in increasing
level dependant on the �big money� and about the tactics of the parties
of Roma to lead successful campaign in these conditions. Especially the
sociologist Jivko Georgiev claimed that the anti-Roma attitudes among
the Bulgarians are as strong as it were in the beginning of so-called
�transition�. According him opinion there is no successful state policy
combating the racism and ethnical prejudices. He advised the Roma
politics to make an union with the poorest Bulgarians and to try to
attract them. 

Human Rights Project organized that seminar by two main reasons. First
of all because we are strongly worried about the signs for using so
unambiguously racist propaganda in the process of elections and for that
reason we will do all our best to combat these attempts for destroying
of the democratic essence of our political system. Secondly since 2000
HRP has carried out its project �Political Academy for Roma� that has
prepared them for participation in the politics. A lot of people who
were educated in that �Political Academy� won seats at these elections.
That shows us our program is successful and we have intention to
continue it. We believe that the discussion about the best way for
realization of the political rights of Roma. 


On behalf of HRP:


Emil Cohen

_____________

*Human Rights Project was established in the summer of 1992 as a
non-profit organization focusing on monitoring the human rights
situation of the Roma in Bulgaria, and on legal defense in cases of
serious human rights abuses. The HRP monitors the human rights situation
of the Roma community in Bulgaria and reports on the cases which it had
investigated; works with Roma volunteers from all over the country who
report on the human rights observation in their region; conduct
independent extrajudicial investigation into allegations of human rights
violations against Roma; hire lawyers to take up selected cases and
monitors the process of legal defense; advocates legislative and policy
changes in favor of Roma.

 

Ivan Ivanov is Chair of the Board of HRP.

Dimitrina Petrova, Dimitar Georgiev, Mitio Kemalov and Rumian Russinov
are members of the Board.

Emil Cohen emilcohen@mbox.cit.bg is Executive Director.

Our address: 23 Solunska St., 6th floor, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

Tel./fax: (+359 2) 986 35 46 and (+359 2) 981 50 66;

E-mail: hrproject@mbox.cit.bg and hrp@netel.bg