Kiril Petkov is not a typical Bulgarian prime minister. The 41-year-old probiotics entrepreneur and Harvard Business School graduate is a political newcomer. He could not be more different to Boyko Borissov, the burly former bodyguard who dominated Bulgarian politics for 12 years, until he resigned last year after months-long street protests against corruption.
After three general elections in eight months, Petkov’s newly created We Continue the Change party swept to power at the head of a four-party coalition, vowing to tackle Bulgaria’s most pernicious problem: corruption.
Speaking to the Observer, Petkov said he wanted to eradicate corruption during his four-year term in office. “I don’t say decreasing corruption, I say full eradication,” he said, adding that he hoped Bulgaria would be a textbook case of how corruption can be eliminated in a short time. “And I don’t think it’s so hard. Bulgaria has 6.5 million people – it’s not such a huge country – so what looks like an insurmountable task for a very large country, I don’t think it’s the case for Bulgaria.”
He was speaking before police detained Borissov and reportedly searched his home on Thursday after the fledgling European public prosecutor’s office announced it had opened 120 investigations into fraud involving EU funds in the country. Officials did not elaborate on the accusations against Borissov, who has faced allegations of corruption in the past and always denied wrongdoing.
The decision by Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor, Ivan Geshev, to release Borissov from custody without charge after saying he found procedural flaws, and that the former prime minister could not be detained further due to lack of evidence, prompted sharp criticism from the government.
“We are faced with just the next sabotage on the part of the prosecution headed by Ivan Geshev,” Petkov said.
Speaking before Borissov’s arrest, Petkov differentiated himself from his predecessor. Borissov, he said, had to make deals with “the oligarchy system” to maintain power. By contrast, there had been “huge hygiene” about who could join the party he co-founded with fellow Harvard graduate Assen Vassilev, now the finance minister. “We are independent, we are starting clean, we are depending on nobody.”
Sitting at the EU table, Bulgaria will be championing democratic standards, he said. “You will see Bulgaria from now on speaking about the rule of law as a really strong proponent. The first thing is you should look at yourself and make sure you do your own work before pointing fingers.”
He questioned why it was Washington, rather than Sofia, that put sanctions on the Bulgarian oligarch, media mogul and political kingmaker, Delyan Peevski, who is alleged to have controlled Borissov from behind the scenes.
The US described him as someone who “has regularly engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society”.
Petkov said: “I think we should be raising our eyebrows why somebody from 8,000km away could see more clearly significant acts of corruption.” He located the blame in Sofia: “First we have to look at why the prosecution in Bulgaria closed their eyes to this.”
Petkov wants Geshev to resign, although he has no power to make this happen. Last month, the prime minister handed Geshev a list of 19 individuals linked in media reports to high-level corruption and told prosecutors to do their job.
Louisa Slavkova, director of the Sofia Platform, which promotes democracy, describes Petkov’s decision to hand over names as unprecedented. “They [the government] have the capacity to focus on the toxic triangle between business, politics and media,” she said.
Daniel Smilov, at the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, said Petkov and his party had the “potential to turn the corner to make Bulgaria a country that is not systemically referred to as the most corrupt country” in the EU.
The problem for Petkov is that his original agenda has been “overtaken by all sorts of crises”. Galloping inflation, lingering Covid – Bulgaria has the lowest EU vaccination rate – as well as war in Europe. Bulgaria does not share a land border with Ukraine but cannot avoid the ripple effects of the conflict in its neighbourhood. The war is a fraught issue for the coalition, as some members have been historically pro-Russia, although all have condemned the invasion. “What unites them is their stance against the corrupt acts of the previous government, but when it comes to some of the other issues, there are tensions, to put it mildly,” Smilov said.
Earlier this month Bulgaria’s defence minister, Stefan Yanev, was sacked after refusing to describe the Russian invasion as a war.
Bulgaria has backed EU sanctions against Russia so far but opposes a ban on Russian oil and gas imports, a position also supported by Germany and Hungary. “We are the most dependent of the EU nations [on] Russian gas. Sometimes we are 100% dependent, which is staggering,” Petkov said. He hopes to see a gas interconnector and long-delayed 182km pipeline connecting Bulgaria to Greece completed by the summer, bringing cheaper gas from Azerbaijan and breaking Russia’s monopoly.
While Bulgaria supports humanitarian aid and champions Ukraine’s EU membership prospects, it has ruled out sending weapons.
Despite Petkov’s pro-EU credentials, Slavkova contends there is still ambiguity in the coalition’s communication about Bulgaria’s alliances, especially in the context of “a media space that didn’t take seriously the disinformation attempts by Russia for many years”.
She thinks Bulgaria is at a turning point comparable to the late 1990s when, after a decade of instability after the fall of the Berlin wall, the country chose a westward path. “It feels like a historical moment for a country like Bulgaria, it feels like we are at a point when we almost have to decide anew that we are part of Nato and the European Union.”
