Bulgaria Communists Call Unions’ Plan ‘Blackmail’

The Communist Party on Sunday condemned as “blackmail” a union federation’s call for a country-wide civil disobedience campaign to force the immediate resignation of all national and local leaders of the party.

“What makes these people be in such a hurry?” asked the Communist Party’s Central Committee in a statement published by the party newspaper Robotnichesko Delo.

Konstantin Trenchev, president of the independent trade union federation Podkrepa, on Saturday demanded the resignation of the government, the establishment of a coalition cabinet with an independent prime minister and the dissolution of the National Assembly, which was formed by former Bulgarian leader Todor Zhivkov.

In a declaration to the weekly television program Panorama, Trenchev also demanded the collective resignation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, of all heads and deputy heads of departments of the Central Committee and the regional and municipal party committees.

Trenchev said the leading posts in the party “are occupied by persons who are discredited and are unknown on a national scale.”

Trenchev called for “active civic presence expressed in incessant vigil, meetings, demonstrations and precautionary and symbolic strikes.”

“We are disturbed by the fact that the apparatus which is the basis of the totalitarian system in practice is not dismantled,” Trenchev said. “There are some personnel changes but at present it is almost untouched. We see, as is the case in Romania, that when the existence of this totalitarian apparatus is threatened, it is inclined to undertake very reckless actions.

“We don’t wish the events to reach a development as in Romania, and we hope that sufficient common sense will be displayed,” said Trenchev.

The party statement called Trenchev’s demands “blackmail and exerting pressure by means of demonstrations and strikes in order to oust the Communist Party from social life.”

“Because led by ill concealed selfish ambitions, they are attempting to push the nation toward destabilization, disunity and confrontation, evidently because they are afraid that they will lose in a free democratic elections,” the Central Committee said.

The size of the membership of Podkrepa is unknown, but it is considered one of the most powerful labor federations in the country.