Volen Siderov

Volen Siderov
Chairman of Attack
Incumbent
Assumed office 17 April 2005
Personal details
Born	(1956-04-19) 19 April 1956 Yambol, Bulgaria
Nationality	Bulgarian
Political party	Attack
Spouse(s)	Kapka Siderova (Separated)
Children	None
Profession	Author Journalist
Religion	Orthodox Christian

Volen Nikolov Siderov (Bulgarian: Волен Николов Сидеров) (born 19 April 1956) is a Bulgarian politician and chairman of the nationalist party Attack. He has been the editor of numerous newspapers and has authored five books.^{[citation needed]}

Early life

Siderov was born in 1956 in Yambol, Bulgaria. He received an undergraduate degree in Applied Photography in Sofia, and before the fall of Communism in 1989, worked at the National Literature Museum as a photographer.

After the fall of Communism, Siderov became a member of the newly established Movement for Human Rights. During the fall of 1990, he became the editor-in-chief of Democracy (Bulgarian: Демокрация), the official newspaper of the Union of Democratic Forces (Siderov played a major role in establishing the paper as the official publication of the right-wing party).

At one point he was appointed deputy editor-in-chief of Monitor, a newspaper of a political orientation that could be described as nationalist and conservative. In 2000, Siderov was presented with the award of the Union of the Bulgarian Journalists. Later, he came to be the host of Attack, a talk show on the Bulgarian cable TV channel "SKAT".

In 2002 Siderov was invited to a controversial anti-globalisation conference in Moscow where he rubbed shoulders with people like Ahmed Rami and David Duke.^[1]

Rise in politics

During the 2003 local elections Siderov ran for mayor of Sofia on the ticket of the marginal National Association-BZNS Party. He received 1,728 votes, or 0.45% (). That attempt passed largely unnoticed for the general public.

During the June 2005 parliamentary elections, already a popular TV host, Siderov organised and led the party "Attack", named after his talk show. Surprisingly, the party won 8.14% (296,848 votes) of the total vote, thus becoming the 4th largest party in parliament. (Source: Central Elections Committee.) In the 2009 elections Attack won 9.4% (395,000 votes) of the total vote.

International relations

Its 3 MEPs participated in the short-lived Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group (2007), which was a political group in the European Parliament composed of 23 members from European parties variously described as right-wing and nationalist.

Siderov reportedly espouses anti-Masonic conspiracy theories, claiming that Masons control the world through puppet regimes, international organizations, and the press. According to Siderov, these forces seek to commit genocide against Bulgarian people. Attack opposes the membership of Bulgaria in NATO; Siderov has declared that the people were lied to, that Bulgaria would be the most safety place by then Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs—Solomon Pasi—but the result was reducing the Bulgarian army to 20,000 troops and in necessity Bulgaria would be defenseless as the Turkish government wants. He compared the accession of Bulgaria to NATO as a new signing of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, considered as humiliating treaty for Bulgaria, signed after World War I. Although the party is ambivalent on Bulgaria's European Union membership, it has demanded a revision of some of the previous agreements (e.g. the resolution on shutting down the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant near the Danube), it claims that those who signed the EU membership, referring to Meglena Kuneva and others, are national traitors, not because of the EU membership itself, but because of the "anti-Bulgarian" agreements, on which it is signed. Siderov expressed respect to the Russian president Vladimir Putin, by visiting him on foot for his 60th birthday on 7 October 2012.^[2] On 8 March 2013 Siderov paid tribute to the deceased president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez at the Bolivarian republic's embassy in Sofia, where he called the revolutionary an 'example for the Bulgarian patriots as a statesman'.^[3]

Attack claims that the Turkish government has an hidden plan for a "new colonization" of the Balkan region, accusing them of erecting over a thousand mosques in the last 20 years in Bulgaria and with further plans of colonization. Bulgaria is currently the country with the most mosques in Europe per capita. Attack asked from the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan $10 billion for the The Destruction of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913 and once, members of the party entered the parliament wearing shirts on which was written "Erdogan, you owe us $10 billion"; another time with an inscription "ATTACK says: No to Turkey in the EU", Siderov numerous times accused Turkey for the genocide and said that, as descendant of refugees from the genocide, he will ever accuse Turkey for the money until he is in the parliament and till he is breathing. The governing Borisov's party expressed full support for the accession of Turkey to the European Union, while Attack boycotted this as self-styled decision and insist on a national referendum for the will of the people on the matter.

Attack insists on the cancellation of Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine and the returning of the Western Outlands to Bulgaria, annexed by Yugoslavia after the First World War, which consists of the regions of Dimitrovgrad and Bosilegrad in Serbia, whose population according to the Serbian national census is predominantly ethnic Bulgarian, and of the region of Strumica in Republic of Macedonia. Siderov said that the treaty is invalid, because it was signed with Yugoslavia in 1919, a vanished state, and does not refer to the present-day Serbia or to the Republic of Macedonia and should be cancelled.

The first statement ever of Volen Siderov from the parliamentary tribune, for a plan for a giant genocide of the Bulgarian nation, coming from abroad:

"…In this 8-year period gigantic genocide was carried out over the Bulgarian nation. At the insistence of foreign, hostile to Bulgaria factors, of our people is projected to remain 3.5 to 4 million residents. This is Bulgarophobe's plan and this plan is realised in front of us. If someone asks how, I will show him: when the right of the Bulgarians to be masters in their own country became stolen, when they will be left to die in misery and lack of medicines and medical services, by being subjected to terror by Gypsy bands, who everyday [sic?] disrupt, rob, rape and maltreat the Bulgarian nation, after which nobody deliberately seeks out the crimes, committed by them, because this is the directive outside, not to investigate the crimes of these minority groups. The goal is for the Bulgarians to live in fear, to be discouraged, crushed, submissive. Hundreds of thousands of chronically ill are dying right now because mob companies of the previous cabinet make dirty deals with the life and health of the Bulgarians. Because relatives of the previous Minister of Environment are trading with medicaments for cancer and therefore there are not any medicaments, and hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians with cancer face a slow, excruciating agony."^[4]

Controversy

Siderov has generated increasing controversy as Attack has improved at the polls. He has been labeled xenophobic, and his persona has been called "a studied imitation of Hitler".^[5] He has criticised the "symbiotic relationship" between established political parties and organised criminal groups. He has also spoken against the purportedly "widespread discrimination" against majority ethnic Bulgarians by their own state, particularly in relation to the alleged non-prosecution by the state of crimes committed by ethnic minorities and the supposed free provision to certain ethnic groups of social services that have been denied^{[citation needed]} to ordinary Bulgarians.

Siderov and his party "Attack" were among the few Bulgarian political forces that opposed the closing of the four units of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. Units 1 and 2 were taken shut down in the end of 2003 and units 3 and 4 were taken out of operation in the final hours of 2006, immediately prior to the country's accession to the European Union.

In February 2007, the newspaper "168 hours" published claims that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms has paid BGN 1.6 Million to "Attack". On 23 February 2007 Volen Siderov appeared in the offices of the "168 Hours", and asked for an explanation, which was not provided. Attack is suing the newspaper for libel.

From time to time Siderov is involved in scandals that include hooliganism.^[6]

Presidential election 2006

 Summary of the 2006 Bulgarian presidential election results:

Candidate	Party	First round		Second round
		Votes	%	Votes	%
Georgi Parvanov	Bulgarian Socialist Party	1,780,119	64.047%	2,050,488	75.948%
Volen Siderov	Attack	597,175	21.486%	649,387	24.052%
Nedelcho Beronov	Union of Democratic Forces	271,078	9.753%
Georgi Markov	Order, Law and Justice	75,478	2.716%
Petar Beron	Initiative committee	21,812	0.785%
Grigor Velev	Аll in one Bulgaria	19,857	0.714%
Lyuben Petrov	Initiative committee	13,854	0.498%
Total / turnout		2,856,734 (44.3%)	100.000%	2,757,441 (42.8%)	100.000%

Siderov ran for President in the 2006 presidential election. In the first round on 22 October he received 21% of the vote and qualified for the runoff on 29 October against incumbent Georgi Parvanov, who had 65%. Parvanov was not declared the winner after the first round because, in accordance with Bulgarian electoral law, at least 50% of all registered voters had to take part in the first round for that. Mainstream right-wing parties in Bulgaria (the UDF and the DSB) refused to back any of the candidates, despite appeals by many observers, notably by fellow conservative and European People's Party chairman Hans-Gert Pöttering, to support Parvanov (the situation was commonly compared with the way French left voters supported mainstream right-wing candidate Jacques Chirac against far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002). The centrist National Movement for Simeon II ultimately decided to back Parvanov. Meanwhile some far left formations called their sympathizers to support Siderov. In the second round he lost, receiving about 24% of the vote.

References

External links

• Attack Party official website
• The newspaper of the Attack party

Authority control VIAF: 44030375 ISNI: 0000 0000 7910 155X GND: 15735783X

Persondata
Name	Siderov, Volen
Alternative names	Волен Сидеров (Bulgarian)
Short description	Bulgarian politician
Date of birth	19 April 1956
Place of birth	Yambol, Bulgaria
Date of death	living
Place of death