DPS nominates Elena Yoncheva for MEP – Elections

Elena Yoncheva was surprisingly nominated for a member of the European Parliament by the DPS. This became clear from a post on the Facebook page of the Party’s Regional Council in Blagoevgrad.

At its meeting today, the Regional Council made a unanimous decision to nominate Delyan Peevski as the leader of the Blagoevgrad DPS list for the upcoming National Assembly elections.

The following nominations for members of the European Parliament were also made at the meeting:

delyan peevski

Jevdet Chakarov

Ilkhan Kyuchuk

Iskra Mihailova

Elena Yoncheva

Stanislav Anastasov

Tanzer Yuseinov

Taner Kabilov

Who is Elena Yoncheva?

Elena Yoncheva is a journalist, politician, deputy in the XLIV National Assembly, press secretary of the Presidency (2017). Since 2019, he has been an MEP from the BSP quota.

In 2017, Yoncheva was part of the initiative committee that nominated Rumen Radev as a presidential candidate. After becoming president, he appointed her as his media relations secretary. Soon after, she left and was elected as an MP in the XLIV National Assembly from the BSP group.

There, Yoncheva continues to appear as a journalist – making documentaries about the weaknesses of the government. She makes a film about the fence along Bulgaria’s southern border and demonstrates that it can easily be crossed, provoking the anger of Deputy Prime Minister Valery Simeonov, who is responsible for building the fence. He accuses Yoncheva of using half-truths and replacing facts. Simeonov claims that she took pictures of the fence, even at the time when it was not ready.

As a deputy, Yoncheva came into conflict with the ruling party, including and with Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Minister Boil Banov. In 2017, Elena Yoncheva filed a defamation case against Boyko Borisov. After a long trial, Yoncheva convicted Borisov at all three instances.

The Supreme Court of Cassation confirms that Borisov and GERB must pay 5,000 BGN to Yoncheva. The initial amount that the journalist wants is BGN 20,000, but the court reduces it.

At the beginning of 2019, the prosecutor’s office brought charges against her for money laundering related to the KTB affair. Elena Yoncheva responds to the accusations by saying that this is an attempt at intimidation, which is related to her revelations about abuses by those in power. Subsequently, in April 2021, KPCONPI filed a claim against her for the confiscation of BGN 158,000.

Today it became clear that Elena Yoncheva finally lost the court case, which she leads against a revision act from August 2021 in the sense that she hid from the National Revenue Agency tax revenues of BGN 36,025 principal plus BGN 21,939 interest (total BGN 57,965). In addition, the Supreme Administrative Court sentenced her to pay nearly BGN 4,500 for the NRA’s costs before the Supreme Administrative Court and just over BGN 7,000 for the first instance.