The standards of even the most credible publications can come crashing down when it comes to the Bulgarian reality and its fake-news-steered public consciousness. Examples abound. The latest, but surely not last, one comes courtesy of the online publication of Der Standard.

The news website Frognews, sponsored by fugitive banker Tsvetan Vassilev, is the epitome of a cesspool, a sewer draining all kinds of slime. Any politician who cannot catch on with a party and any informer of the former State Security is welcome to spill his guts there. There is only one condition – to libel lawmaker from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Delyan Peevski, no matter what, all the while pretending to fight against those in power. Which does not make much sense since Peevski is an MP from an opposition party.

There are no ministers under the control of Peevski, there is a prime minister. That flabbergasting nonsense, part of the talking points of the oligarchy, was uttered by Vladislav Panev, a Sofia municipal councilor and an old associate of Ivo Prokopiev.

Do you know how billions can disappear overnight and a state can wake up with skyrocketing hyperinflation? Perhaps not, but you can always fill in the blanks by questioning former vice-PM and minister of economic development in Videnov’s infamous cabinet Rumen Gechev, who has risen from the ashes of the 1990s bank collapses after socialist leader Kornelia Ninova personally installed him as BSP lawmaker and vice-chair of the budgetary commission at the current National Assembly. 

Stand-up comedy undoubtedly missed out on huge talents in the latest duo of political show business – Hristo Ivanov and Ivo Mirchev. Prokopiev’s two hangers-on from the indicted oligarch’s GMO political party Yes, Bulgaria have been touring the country for a month now, pulling double duty – reminding the public of their own existence and that of their party, which is bogged down in the range of statistical error when it comes to voter support; and simultaneously serving their sponsor by spouting lies and doing all sorts of circus tricks against his enemies.

We have not expected any morality from the hangers-on of the oligarchs, capable of stealing our health in order to fill their bank accounts abroad, but the personal press centre of the fugitive banker Tsvetan Vassilev - Frognews achieved the impossible. It turned the bottom into sky and kept digging down. In the swamp of its own unscrupulousness. To smash the enemies of its ringleader and of the indicted oligarchs.

The paltry protest staged by an activist of the Association of European Journalists – Bulgaria in Berlin, of which we informed our readers on 19 July, has officially been covered by the №1 website for fake news in Bulgaria – Mediapool. To remove any doubt as to the authenticity of the information posted there, the Berlin protester, who made posters by hand and hung them on a tree outside the Bulgarian embassy in the German capital, presents himself as an independent journalist. Well, how independent he could really be when he reports on his own protest?

NGOs’ network of the behind-the-scenes clique does not even hide longer that its mentors have hugged and now they are trying to undermine our country together, in order to get rid of the retribution for their crimes. The special unit connected with the indicted oligarch Ivo Prokopiev for strikes against the awkward one of the oligarchs - the NGO Justice for Everyone, is preparing another coup, this time in front of the Sofia Court House.

It becomes scary when the hinges of “Dragalevtsi’s suitcases” start creaking (editor’s note – “suitcases” mean the process of streaming of money to people, faithful to the former communist system). Dirty secrets and even dirtier little men emerge from the dust.

You are not OK with getting robbed? Then you are one of Delyan Peevski’s people. You see Prokopiev as an arrogant oligarch who was practically gifted a lucrative kaolin mine, who devastated an entire town, and hit your personal finances with unjustifiably inflated electricity bills? Then you are one of Delyan Peevski’s people. You are furious that Prokopiev’s fellow privatisation investor with legal problems on his mind and media outlets spewing fake news on his portfolio – Ognyan Donev – is making money at the expense of your health? Then you are one of Delyan Peevski’s people.