Angel Dzhambazki

Dzhambazki was a member of the Sofia city council between 2007 and 2014 after first being elected on the ticket of GERB, though making use of the quota for citizens,[4] and then securing a seat in October 2011 as a candidate of IMRO.[5]

In November 2013, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee notified Bulgaria's then-Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov in relation to comments made by Dzhambazki, other IMRO members and football fans during an anti-immigrant procession in Sofia. Dzhambazki has criticized the non-governmental organization for being what it described as an "instrument for the destruction of the nation".[6]

Three years later, Dzhambazki and his party filed a motion before Tsatsarov, which sought to have the activities of the Helsinki Committee banned in Bulgaria, alleging that they had been "pressuring" and "influencing" judges through the use of seminars, which they claim led to the granting of the parole request of Jock Palfreeman. The NGO rejected the allegations, dubbing them a "part of the IMRO's election campaign".[7]

In May 2014, Dzhambazki was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Bulgaria Without Censorship - IMRO electoral coalition.[8] In 2016 and 2017 Dzhambazki has been accused of racist, xenophobic and homophobic comments.[9][10]

He was reelected to the European Parliament on his party's own list in the 2019 European Parliament election.

In September 2019, he announced his candidacy for Mayor of Sofia, Bulgaria's capital and largest city, during Bulgaria's 2019 local elections. He focused his campaign on dismantling ghettos inhabited primarily by Bulgaria's Romani minority, as well as banning the annual Sofia Pride gay parade as part of what he described as a 'law and order' campaign.[11][12] He came under criticism from his former coalition partner Volen Siderov, as he refused to resign his seat on the European Parliament as he stood for election as Mayor of Sofia.[13] He came in fifth with 3.90% of the vote.[14]

Since the start of his political career, Dzhambazki has opposed the role of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in Bulgarian politics, declaring the party as "toxic" and a "criminal organization".[15][16][17][18]

In April of 2019, Dzhambazki celebrated the cancellation of Bulgaria's "National Strategy for Children (2019-2030)", which he stated was "scandalous" and would "legalize controversial practices in childrearing, debate the role of the family and parents and lead to a conclusion that would lead the country along the perverted lines of countries such as Norway or the Netherlands". He declared that the cancellation of the strategy was a victory for himself and his party, which he opined would continue to "fight to defend tradition, the family and christian values" and against "multiculturalism and eurobureaocratism".[19][20]

Dzhambazki condemned a statement to the UN general assembly by Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva regarding child rights on 27 September 2019, stating that he found it "unacceptable" for the interests of the child to be viewed as "isolated" from its parents or to come into conflict with the parent's interests. He also stated that he found it "unacceptable" for biological parents to have the same status as legal guardians and social services put in care of children.[21]

On 26 November 2019, he condemned the Istanbul Convention against domestic violence, which he stated would not prevent violence against women, but instead "destroy the Christian family and traditional values, consisting of a man, woman and their children", adding that "everything else is a perversion and gender propaganda".[22]

On 27 November 2019, he delivered a speech to the European Parliament, in which he accused the plenary session of being "devoted to LGBT propaganda" and stated that he rejected "homosexual propaganda, as well as actions close to paedophillia". He further accused the EU Parliament of Bolshevism, stating to the assembly that the parliament had acted like "Chinese communist-bolsheviks", which led to him being booed by MEPs.[23]

Dzhambazki took a vocally strong stance against the 2019 proposed changes to the EU transport law proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron. Dzhambazki stated that the reform plan had been pushed alongside an "organized campaign against Bulgarian national interests", as the reforms were deemed to hurt Bulgarian transport companies.[24] On 17 December 2019, a statement he published online against the proposed reform package was put under investigation for racism by the European Parliament, after he dubbed transport committee chairwoman Karima Delli a "French woman from Algerian descent" and another one of the bill's authors, Ismail Ertug, as a "German man from Turkish descent".[25] Following condemnation from several MEPs, Dzhambazki stated that he would apologise if the two felt offended, adding that he himself would not be offended if someone were to dub him a "Bulgarian from Macedonian descent".[26][27]

In April 2020, Dzhambazki stated that the Bulgarian population needed to be protected from the Roma people, which amount to about 5% of the population, while some argue numbers could be twice the size.[28]