“I take personal political responsibility and resign as co-chair of "We Continue the Change." I am also resigning as a member of parliament from "We Continue the Change."

This was announced by the co-chair of "We Continue the Change" (PP) and former PM of Bulgaria Kiril Petkov at an press conference, BGNES reported.

Petkov's reaction comes after a recording of a conversation between Sofia Deputy Mayor Nikola Barbutov and Lyulin District Mayor Georgi Todorov was sent to the media earlier today.

"When we created the party, we talked about zero tolerance for corruption. We have upheld this principle throughout. Neither I nor anyone else on the PP's Executive Council knew about this. Being free of corruption does not mean you are a good leader. If this signal and recording are true, then this is indeed a big mistake. It is a mistake that such a district mayor allows himself to have such conversations. Anti-corruption is at the heart of our party—it is our credo. This is also a huge failure for both district mayors. The fact that they did not pick up the phone and did not tell us is a huge failure," Petkov said.

The audio recordings that have been released reveal that the head of the office of former Prime Minister Nikola Denkov, Ivan Modev, and Lena Borisova, head of Kiril Petkov's office, are also involved in the corruption scandal. According to Kiril Petkov, “Denkov and Borisova cannot be corrupt.”

The recordings reveal that the newly elected mayor of the capital's Slatina district, Georgi Iliev, Tatyana Sultanova, Stefan Sivev, and Borislav Beshirov are directly involved in the corruption schemes.

BGNES reminds that Kiril Petkov was prime minister from December 2021 to August 2022.

On Tuesday, the deputy mayor of Sofia responsible for European policies, international activities, and tourism, Nikola Barbutov, was taken in for questioning and detained during an operation by the Anti-Corruption Commission in the municipality. Three other people linked to commercial companies were also detained. Nikola Barbutov submitted his resignation today.

On June 23rd Two district mayors in Sofia announced they were leaving the political party, citing pressure related to public procurement and corruption attempts.  | BGNES