Who’s who in Peter Moskov’s new coalition “Blue Bulgaria” – Important today

What is the commonality between the former Minister of Health Petar Moskov and the son of the publisher of “Trud” Petyo Bluskov?

It turns out – “the struggle against the liberal decay of values“. Or more precisely Election 2024.

Moskov and Blaskov Jr. are part of the “Blue Bulgaria” coalition, along with the municipal councilor in SOS Willy Lilkovthe former deputy chairman of the DSB Tsetska Bachkova and the former Deputy Minister of Economy under Nikolay Vassilev Nikola Yankov.

The official registration in the CEC of the coalition includes seven parties:

• CODE of Peter Moskov
• Bulgarian Democratic Forum of Jacqueline Toleva
• Movement “Democratic Action – D3” of Stefan Ivanov (former municipal councilor from SDS in Sofia)
• NDSVcurrently headed by Stanimir Ilchev
• Movement “Bulgaria for the citizens” – founded by Meglena Kuneva, currently chaired by the mayor of Dobrich Yordan Yordanov
• Party “Conservative Bulgaria” (former NFSB of Valeri Simeonov) with chairman Boris Yachev
• Radical Democratic Party in Bulgaria – former member of the coalition around the SDS, last participated in the elections in April 2021 with “Volya” and NFSB

The appearance of “Blue Bulgaria” in the elections for the 50th National Assembly and the European Parliament comes after a test of the narrower format of the local vote in Sofia in October 2023.

Their candidate for mayor Willy Lilkov took just over 21,000 votes (5.6%), and their lists – 15,210, enough to get three municipal councilors into the SOS.

Lilkov was among the people who campaigned most actively for the creation of a majority between GERB and PP-DB-Save Sofia in the Metropolitan Municipal Council despite the opposition between the two biggest forces and the inability to elect a chairman for months.

At the moment when a breakthrough was made to approve Tsvetomir Petrov (PP-DB) as the head of the SOS, the other groups in the council distributed the key chair positions in the committees (including for the breakaways from “Vazrazhdane”).

“We from Blue Bulgaria stand behind clear and uncompromising principles – we will defend a strong Bulgaria in Europe. We will defend a Christian Bulgaria and all its values. We will defend the sacred role of the family and the right to raise our children as we decide. We will oppose the liberal decay of values. Above all, we will defend freedom – the freedom for Bulgarians to decide their own destiny and the freedom of speech for people to express opinion that contradicts of the left status quo,” says Viktor Bluskov at a press conference in BTA.

The 31-year-old representative of “Blue Bulgaria” is one of the few participants in the coalition who has no previous experience as a member of the party leadership.

But since March 2024, he is a member of the management board of a foundation named “Conservative society“, whose head is Kristian Shkvarek. Among its other members is the municipal councilor from GERB Rumen Stanley Alexandrov (recently the head of GERB-Bankya) and the deputy chairman of the COD Boyan Stefanov.

He is the head of the economic team of “Blue Bulgaria”. Nikola Yankov – managing partner of “Expat Capital”. Yankov was Deputy Minister of the Economy (2001-2003) and of Transport (2003-2005) under Nikolay Vasilev, who is also his current partner in the fund.

He graduated from Cornell University in 1994, and his biography states that he worked in management positions in international companies from 1995-2001 such as Kraft Jabobs Suchard and Solvay Sodi. What former GERB MP Anton Todorov decided to remind on Wednesday is that among them is “Naftex Bulgaria Holding” of Denys Ershov, expelled from the National Security Service in 2000.

Yankov motivated his participation in the elections through “Blue Bulgaria” with the fact that “Bulgaria does not have a right-wing party in government” in recent years, and self-identified as such “implement left-wing policies that have led to nothing but a reduction in our common wealth and a postponement of our country’s unfinished European integration”.