Bulgaria’s election next month is boiling down to the role of a sanctioned tycoon and his capacity to undermine the nation’s fragile democracy.
To his critics — particularly from reformist, anti-corruption parties — media mogul and MP Delyan Peevski has come to epitomize Bulgaria’s captured state, in which shadowy oligarchs, spies and crime gangs have wrapped their tentacles round key core institutions in the EU and NATO country.
Nikolay Denkov, prime minister until last month, describes Peevski — sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.K. — as the “biggest evil” to befall the Balkan nation of 6.5 million people.