What any frog fears most is that someone will make a splash in her so cozy bog. Everybody knows the maxim about fishing in murky waters. The same is true about a bog, especially if it is a media bog.
What any frog fears most is that someone will make a splash in her so cozy bog. Everybody knows the maxim about fishing in murky waters. The same is true about a bog, especially if it is a media bog.
What any frog fears most is that someone will make a splash in her so cozy bog. Everybody knows the maxim about fishing in murky waters. The same is true about a bog, especially if it is a media bog. The stale waters where the oligarchs have been pouring dirty money for years yielded a layer of mud, good habitat for frogs and other amphibians around. And when someone attempts to make a splash in the bog and see what are the sources of this nourishing mud it order to cleanse the environment the frogs surround the bog and start croaking. Wouldn’t you believe it?
If not, just read the next in row lampoon by Ognyan Stefanov, personal PR agent of the ex-baker hiding form justice in Serbia posted on his Frognews website and you will have a clearer picture. Actually, this negligible internet page (sustained by the former State Security agent owing to ample sums syphoned off the failed CorpBank and acting as private press office of the indicted banker – Ed.’s note) has not even published Stefanov’s article. This is a copy of some interview with his other friend who has financial contacts with Belgrade, namely Sasho Dikov, and a desperate attempt to undermine the law aimed at illuminating the media owners and their financial sources.
The amendment has become known as “Peevski Act” thanks to the name of its mover: lawmaker of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and publisher of Telegraph Media Delyn Peevski. Ever since it first appeared in the media space it became clear that the oligarchy will be hit hard. Just because it answers the most crucial question for any media – who pays to be able to talk from the pages of a certain media outlet. Or, to put in simpler words, who pays the piper and who the media’s piper is. As for Stefanov, for instance, it became clear that he was on the take of ample sums from CorpBank during the years when the bank has been syphoned off by Tsvetan Vassilev who used it as his private ATM (See here). The new disclosures in the courtroom have evidently worried Stefanov who definitely doesn’t want these facts to leak. That is why he is using his lizard brain and gets together with all other amphibians living in the bog and croaks along with them to keep the nourishing mud intact.
And their croaks are aimed against the “eternal evil” – Peevski. After all, if the lawmaker kept a low profile and didn’t come out with such legislative initiatives the bog would have stayed calm for long. The same applies to the media outlets of Peevski’s media group which keeps exposing all kinds of “inconvenient” facts about the oligarchs and their bog where they are trying to drown Bulgaria and its citizens.
However, there is one very important point which Stefanov misses croaking on the defensive – we, unlike the amphibians, have nothing to hide. On the contrary – our publisher has been checked and audited a record number of times by all kinds of control bodies of this country. Nevertheless, to the utter disappointment of bog’s inhabitants, he cannot compare to their publisher and has nothing to conceal or fear. That is why for years he has been insisting on one thing only – more transparency in the media sector and crashing the oligarchic pattern in the state seized by the behind-the-scenes clique. And this is what driving the bog’s dwellers mad.
Otherwise, Frognews displays many and various mental states varying throughout the week. For instance, at its beginning, the Frog tried to be sarcastic and declared that Peevski “proved to be honest and uncorrupt” (See here). The joke however was at their expense because the statement is true and it has been proven multiple times with documents, facts and audits.
Later though it smelled of rotten frogs’ legs in the bog owing to the revelations made in the course of CorpBank case hearings (See here). It turned out that Stefanov received hefty sums from Tsvetan Vassilev and that is why he employed new tactics – to attack Peevski with lies again.
The week’s end was marked with a new genre born out of the bog’s creative impotence. Since there are no new fakes against Peevski we will try to attack him using the facts of his own biography (See here). Quite innovative and absolutely dumb, isn’t it? But it always happens so in bogs – whenever it smells of clear water the reptiles get seized by panic.
Four resignations over Apartmentgate
The scandal involving public officials buying big apartments in luxury buildings from the construction company Arteks at below-market prices has led to four resignations. At the root of Apartmentgate is the expensive property acquired by Tsvetan Tsvetanov, leader of the parliamentary group of GERB (See here).
Borissov on Confessions Act: Noone has exerted any pressure on us
After nearly 5-hour talks between Bulgaria’s PM Boyko Borissov and Vice President of Turkey Fuat Oktay in Bucharest, Turkey refused to present apologies for the statement of Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who said that Ankara had to interfere in the work of the Bulgarian parliament at the adoption of amendments to the Confessions Act (See here).
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