Movement for Rights and Freedoms
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The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgarian: Движение за права и свободи; Turkish: Hak ve Özgürlükler Hareketi) is a centrist political party in Bulgaria, based in the Turkish minority. The MRF is a member of the Liberal International and considers itself a liberal party, probably like the Swedish People's Party, the party of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland.
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[edit] History
[edit] 1985-1989
Started out as an underground organization in the 1980s under the name of Turkish National Freedom Movement(TNFM) (Турското национално освободително движение) as a response to Todor Zhivkov's policy of Bulgarization of the turkish minority in the country. On March 9th, 1985 TNFM was responsible for planting an explosive device on the Sofia-Bourgass train. The bomb exploded on Bunarovo station in a vagon that was speciffically desegnated for mothers with children, killed seven (two children) and wounded ninehttp://www.netinfo.bg/?tid=40&oid=1011656. Another contraversial act took place in the summer of 1987 when two boys were kidnapped near Balchik by three men associated with TNFM who demanded to be granted a safe passage to Turkeyhttp://more.info.bg/article.asp?topicID=239&issueID=219. Bulgarian authorities refused and intercepted the terrorist's car, killing two of the men and seriously injuring the boys and the remaining terrorist. In recent speeches high MRF officials have acknowledged the movement's involvement in terrorist activities claiming that at the time there was little else that could be done to attract international attentionhttp://www.dps.bg/cgi-bin/e-cms/vis/vis.pl?s=001&p=0055&n=000002&g=.
[edit] post 1989
Since 1990, an officially recognized political party.
[edit] Leaders
It has been chaired by Ahmed Doğan since its official establishment in 1990.
[edit] Electoral results
[edit] October, 1991 local elections
[edit] 16 October, 1999 local elections
[edit] 17 June, 2001 legislative elections
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms won in the 2001 elections 7.5% of the popular vote and 21 out of 240 seats. It subsequently joined the government led by former Bulgarian king Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha of the National Movement Simeon II.
[edit] 26 October, 2003 local elections
[edit] 25 June, 2005 legislative elections
At the last legislative elections, 25 June 2005, it increased to 13.7% of the popular vote and 33 out of 240 seats. See also Bulgarian parliamentary election, 2005 The last (March'2006) political surveys show a significant decreasing of MRF popularity down to 8%.
[edit] 29 October, 2005 partial mayoral elections
[edit] Government participation
[edit] Controversies
As a party representing the main ethnic minority in the parliament and in the government, just like the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, its Hungarian counterpart in Romania, the MRF is the favorite target of Bulgarian nationalists and of the tabloids and other sensationalist TV channels that sometimes try letting people think it, and the whole Turkish minority, is some sort of a finger of Al-Qaeda in the Balkans (see e.g. Albena Shkodrova and Iva Roudnikova, Bulgarian Muslim Infighting Fuels Fundamentalist Fears, Balkan Crisis Report, No 519, 07-Oct-04).
[edit] Ethnic nature
The MRF has been legally a part of Bulgarian political life since 1990, it is still considered by Bulgarian ultra-nationalists, such as the the far-right National Union Attack, to be anti-constitutional since according to them it contradicts a clause in the constitution, stipulating that no ethnic parties can exist. Opponents, however argue, that such a clause is in volation of European law and see banning parties on the basis of their ethnic composition as an instance of ethnic discrimination. Furthermore, despite a similar constitutional ban, religious parties, such as the 'Bulgarian Christian Coalition' have competed for parliamentary elections since 1997, and again in 2005, without any political upheaval (it usually gets less than 1% of the votes).
The question of the legality of the MRF has been de jure settled by the Bulgarian Constitutional Court in 1992, which issued a legal decision favorable to the MRF constitutionality following a complaint filed by the rightist United Democratic Forces party. Another ethnic party, OMO "Ilinden" - PIRIN, which aimed at representing ethnic Macedonians (which do not even exist according to Bulgarian nationalists), was banned in 2000 by the same court (International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Declaring a Macedonian-based Party Unconstitutional, Bulgarian Constitutional Court Violates Basic Political Rights, 01 March 2000). The Euroroma list was however allowed to take part in the 2005 elections, even if 'Roma' clearly indicates that this is an ethnic Roma ('Gypsy') party.
More recently, Antonina Zheliazkova, head of the Centre for Interethnic Relations in Sofia, said about Ahmed Dogan that He has been working hard to open up the party to all citizens and has encouraged the MRF's supporters to be free to vote for non-ethnic parties (Milena Borden, Bulgaria: Turkish Party Urged to Rethink Policies, Sofia News Agency, 17 May 2005).
[edit] Other Turkish political factions
At present there are three other tiny Turkish political factions that oppose the MRF’s politics. These groups - which united to form the Balkan Democratic League - are the Movement of the Democratic Wing (DDK), led by Osman Oktai; the Party for Democracy and Justice (PDS), led by Nejim Genchev; and the Union of the Bulgarian Turks (SBT), led by Seihan Turkan (Milena Borden, op. cit.).
However, these movements, as well as the National Movement for Rights and Freedoms, member of a Social-Democratic coalition ('Rose coalition') failed to secure any elected representative, including through coalitions with non-ethnic parties, whereas the MRF became the third main Bulgarian party at the June 2005 parliamentary elections and entered a three-parties coalition in August with the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the National Movement Simeon II.
[edit] Manipulating the votes
The MRF was severely criticized by Bulgarian nationalist party Attack as well as mainstream rightwing parties such as Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria and the Union of Democratic Forces and even by MRF coalition partners of the National Movement Simeon II to have manipulated the vote in the June 2005 elections at places. Allegedly buses were organized to come from Turkey with people having double citizenship who would vote. It should be noted that the practice of directly sponsoring electoral activity is considered a crime in many democratic countries.
[edit] Liberal party opposing privatization
In February 2005, the MRF opposed the privatisation of Bulgaria's largest tobacco company, Bulgartabak, which was backed by the government and the European Union, as on the grounds that the industry traditionally employs ethnic Turks. The resulting crisis led to the resignation of vice premier Lidia Shuleva (Milena Borden, op. cit.).
[edit] See also
- Liberalism
- Contributions to liberal theory
- Liberalism worldwide
- List of liberal parties
- Liberal democracy
- Political parties of minorities
- Liberalism and radicalism in Bulgaria
[edit] External link
- Movement for Rights and Freedoms official site
