By Stavros Dzimas

Georgi Parvanov will be re-elected President of Bulgaria after the runoff on Sunday ‘unless the Danube runs dry’, a story published in the Greek daily Kathimerini read.
Parvanov will be the first to raise a glass of champagne on January 1, 2007 and say ‘cheers’ for the country’s accession to the EU. Parvanov will be the winner, but the face of these Presidential elections is with no doubt the nationalist leader of Attack Volen Siderov, who reached to runoff, gathering 21.2% of the votes in Bulgaria, while Parvanov had 64%. Parvanov was not elected due to the fact that the voter turnout was under 50%.
Called “the Bulgarian Le Pen” or “the Bulgarian Heider” he certainly stands no chances of victory, but what does it matter?

From 9% to 21.2%

What matters is that his ideas found rich soil among one-fifth of the voters, and even more at the run-off vote, which showed that they are fascinated by the extreme populism, xenophobic racism, refined anti-Europeanism, and as a whole, by the aggression of the “bold and militant journalist”, who reveals everything.
Last year Siderov established a party and taking 9% at the parliamentary elections he made a strong blow at the political stage, and is now taking Parvanov to measure swords and see who would be elected president of the republic.
It will be interesting to check some of the positions and standpoints of the newly emerged political leaders. He is in conflicts with the gypsies; he is appealing to his country fellows to impede the Turkeyzation of Bulgaria, which according to him is being realized by a “Trojan Horse” by the strong Turkish minority; he has also written a book where he defines the Holocaust as the “myth of the Zionists”; he claims that the country’s joining the European union has been done in a humiliating way and insists the issue be reconsidered. Briefly, Siderov declared that the political system, which in his words has robbed the state’s properties by privatization, is corrupt.

Meeting the far right

Despite all this, Siderov doesn’t find it appropriate being compared to neither Le Pen, nor Heider, though in December 2005, according to some publications in the Bulgarian press, he has participated at the forum of the European nationalist parties in Vienna together with Le Pen, Alexandra Mussolini, Heider, and other followers.
A photo published on the pages of the newspapers in Bulgaria and Macedonia we can see Siderov among representatives of Klu-Klux-Klan, Hezbollah, and Russian neo-Nazis, who were all participating in an international conference on topic: “Globalization and Holocaust”, which was held in 2002 in Moscow.
What made 600,000 Bulgarians get fascinated by this man – this is the number of votes Siderov got at the first round of the presidential elections.
Demagogies and populism, Bulgarian analysts and western diplomats in Sofia consider.
His ultra Euro-phobic statements, unrest, and nationalistic rhetoric found rich soil among a great part of the population, which is buried in poverty caused by the preliminary set EU requirements for economic reforms.
The decision that the UK took to restrict the mass invasion of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens on its territory after January 1st, 2007 was welcomed by the nationalistic leader, who is trying to gain some dividends from the unrest of thousands of Bulgarians who hope for a better life by fleeing to countries from EU.
It is the vote on Sunday that will show whether Siderov could be threat to democracy.