Order, Law and Justice (Bulgarian: Ред, законност и справедливост, romanized: Red, zakonnost i spravedlivost, abbreviated as RZS) was a conservative political party in Bulgaria. Its main focus is on fighting crime and corruption.[2] It won the minimum ten seats in the National Assembly at the 2009 election, making it the smallest of the six parties in the legislature.[15] Later some of the deputies left the parliamentary group and it broke the minimum of ten, which inevitably made all parliamentary representatives of the party independent deputies.
| This article needs to be updated. (March 2014) |
Quick Facts Abbreviation, Leader ...
Close
It is led by Yane Yanev, who has frequently revealed classified documents backing up his claims of corruption.[16] The party is close to the British Conservative Party.[2]
The logo of Order, Law and Justice is a blue and orange checkerboard pattern.
The party was founded by renaming and reforming the National Association - Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union (NS-BZNS), which had been part of the United Democratic Forces, decided on the fourth congress of the NS-BZNS in the end of 2005. Its main goal is fighting corruption.[16] In the 2007 European election, RZS won only 0.5% of the vote. By the time of the 2009 election, this had increased to 4.7%, with RZS claiming that only electoral fraud had prevented it from receiving 10%, which would have given it two seats.[17]
A month later, RZS took part in elections to the National Assembly. Its parliamentary ticket was headed by Atanas Semov, a law professor at the University of Sofia. Its platform called for the formation of a stable center-right coalition that would exclude the Bulgarian Socialist Party, a proactive campaign against political corruption, compulsory education until age 16, greater efforts to fight illiteracy, and the rejection of ethnic nationalism in politics.
The election saw RZS win 4.13% of the vote: just clearing the 4% threshold and entitling it to ten seats. The party supported the new centre-right government under Boyko Borisov, but refused to sign an official declaration of support, after pressure from the European Conservatives and Reformists over the involvement of Attack.[18] One of RZS's MPs, Mario Tagarinski, left the party on 9 December 2009, pushing the party below the minimum of ten MPs required to form an official parliamentary group.[15] Another MP, Dimitar Choukarski, left on 11 March 2010, reducing it further to eight MPs.[12]
The party nominated Atanas Semov for president during the 2011 presidential election. He finished seventh with only 1.84% of the popular vote.
In the 2013 parliamentary election the party won only 1.67% of the popular vote and failed to win a seat.