The founder of the Bulgaria of Labour and Reason party told Express.co.uk that over 60 percent of Bulgarians are firmly against the euro. But he warned none of the political parties running against his at this Sunday’s snap elections will pledge to prevent Bulgaria from joining the dreaded eurozone by 2024.
He said: “It’s clear that if our sides of the debate against the European Union is absent, it’s obvious that probably more than 50 percent of Bulgarians are still for the European Union.
“But one good thing is that Bulgarian people are firmly against the euro.
“They don’t want Bulgaria to go into the eurozone.
“Even though they don’t understand the Bulgarian currency board, which makes the Bulgarian lev the euro almost the same.
“But still, they hate the euro, because they heard that in other countries, when they entered the eurozone, regular people suffered.
“All the prices went up with the euro but salaries remained the same.
“So they know this, the Bulgarians. And luckily, there are probably 60 to 70 percent of people against the euro.”
He continued: “At the same time, all other political parties are not giving up on entering the eurozone and by 2024 we will give up our Bulgarian lev.
“And the only party participating in this election advocating against the euro is our party.
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“Our whole programme is based on sovereignty and especially national currency sovereignty.
“We can achieve all our goals in our programme only if we get our financial independence, which means not only to getting into the eurozone, but also demolish the euro currency board and bring back control to our government over the Bulgarian currency on the floating exchange rate.
“And we need to leave the European Union because even with our own currency, all the economic decisions if you’re a member of the European Union are made by the EU Commission.”
Sunday’s snap poll is being held to break the deadlock after Bulgaria’s centre-right GERB party failed to form a government as other parties have shunned it amid popular anger at endemic graft.
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GERB won April’s election with 26.2 percent.
Bulgaria’s new anti-establishment party There Is Such a People (ITN) also failed to secure a parliamentary majority.
The two parties are now almost tied up for support, according to a poll showed on Monday.
Founded by popular TV talk-show host and singer Slavi Trifonov, ITN has pledged to sweep away traditional political parties, which it blames for the Balkan country consistently ranking as the European Union’s poorest and most corrupt member state.
The poll by Sofia-based independent Market Links showed support for ITN rising to 18.8 percent from the 17.7 percent it won in an April general election.
Interim Cabinet allegations of wire-tapping of politicians and activists during anti-graft protests last year and information about the spending of billions of taxpayer money without proper public procurement by the GERB government have also weighed on the party’s popularity.
Market Links analyst Dobromir Zhivkov said: “There are trends that give a little bit more weight for the scenario that ITN could come first, because we see some drop in the support for GERB in the past month.”
Support for two smaller protest parties that are potential ITN partners – Democratic Bulgaria and Stand Up! Mafia Out! – rose to 12.5 percent and 5.4 percent respectively, the poll of 1,085 people conducted June 18-25 showed.
The Socialist party remained the third-most popular with 16.9 percent, while support for the ethnic-Turkish MRF party stood at 9.5 percent.
An alliance of nationalist parties that were junior coalition partners of GERB, did not reach the minimum threshold of support it would need to enter the next parliament, the poll showed.
Mr Markov’s party will run for parliament seats for the first time.
He hopes the party will reach the 4 percent threshold needed to get into parliament.