Photo: Diyana Zhelyazkova
There is no one else to stand up to Peevski” – with this explanation, Ahmed Dogan’s loyalists in the small Deliorman municipalities of Nikola Kozlevo and Venets welcome the entry into politics of outgoing President Rumen Radev and declare their readiness to work for him in the elections. People who remained loyal to Dogan after the party split complain of total pressure and persecution in areas governed by Peevski’s mayors, such as the Shumen municipalities of Nikola Kozlevo and Venets. That is why, months before Rumen Radev’s official entry into politics, they admitted that they were “waiting for the president’s party so that someone could stop Peevski.”
A day after the incumbent president announced that he would resign and join the election race, the honorary chairman of the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APR) Ahmed Dogan congratulated Rumen Radev and expressed his unreserved support. “Congratulations, Mr. President! You alone are the decisive factor in forming an anti-mafia front against our hijacked state! We, from the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms, are unreservedly with you!” Dogan said in a statement released by the ARF press center. “We have a lot of work ahead of us. But with joint efforts, coordination, and unity, we can mobilize all generations to dismantle the ‘deep state’ and restart democracy,” Dogan added.
The reaction of ordinary “Doganists”
“Many people will work for him (Rumen Radev – ed.) because there is no one else to stand up to Peevski,” said an Alliance for Rights and Freedoms activist from Nikola Kozlevo after the president’s statement. He explained what the ordinary residents of Deliorman expect from the current president: “No one else is on the horizon to stand up to the conquered state except him, so everyone has expectations of him – to give us back our country, to make this man (Peevski – ed.) take his plane to Dubai, and for the prosecution to finally expose the dirty laundry of the big bullies around Peevski, because there is a lot to expose!” He added: “God willing, this will happen, and with this hope we will vote for the president.”
Some of Dogan’s activists are dissatisfied with the new leadership of the APS and openly say that they will work directly for Rumen Radev and his structures. Many of the old DPS members expected MEP Ilhan Kyuchuk to take the helm of the APS, but this did not happen. In November 2025, four co-chairs of the party were elected at the founding meeting of the APS: Tamer Ali, Dimitar Nikolov, Hayri Sadakov, and Samir Ali. This disappointed some people, and they withdrew from active politics. “Who are these co-chairs and what have they done for the DPS? Some of them don’t even have five votes behind them,” angry old dogans commented, expressing their readiness to support Rumen Radev’s project “on the front line.”
“It will be a terrible campaign! The mayors (of Peevski – ed.) are already making lists, threatening with dismissals, ordering how many votes should be obtained from where,” said a resident of Nikola Kozlevo.
The same “scary campaign” is predicted by the “dogans” in the neighboring municipality of Venets. “It is expected that Peevski’s mayors will start tightening their ranks today, they simply have no other choice,” commented a public figure from Venets on the day President Rumen Radev submitted his resignation to the Constitutional Court. “They will try to get everyone to vote (Peevski’s mayors – ed.). There is already talk of an Indian thread and how they will transport them (the voters – ed.) by car from house to house,” explains a person familiar with the electoral process. He comments: “The mayors put very select people on the election commissions, people with a lot of experience who know the voters and monitor them on a list. These members of the polling stations keep track of who comes to vote, and if someone doesn’t come, there will be consequences. That’s why people come to vote out of fear, because they start to pressure them.”
Despite the pressure, those who remained loyal to Dogan will still vote against Peevski, but the question is how their votes will be counted, predicts a teacher from Venets. He says that there is sympathy for the president in the municipality, “because people are looking for a savior, and Dogan is not so indisputable,” adding: “There is support for Rumen Radev, and people would even be disappointed if he had not entered politics.”
In the previous parliamentary elections on October 27, 2024, the party of Delian Peevski, who was sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act, won in Nikola Kozlevo and Venets, which until then had been Dogan’s “strongholds.”
In Nikola Kozlevo, New Beginning received 73.5% of the votes. With a voter turnout of 43%, the highest in the region, and a total of 3,033 people voting, Peevski’s party was supported by 2,143 voters. Dogan’s APS received 14.69% or 428 votes. In the municipality of Venets, with a turnout of 29%, 50.65% or 1,519 voters voted for Peevski’s New Beginning, and 29.44% or 883 people voted for Dogan’s APS.
