Bulgarian Deputy Minister Resigns over a Scandal with a 'Nazi Salute' Picture

Bulgaria’s Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works from the quota of the United Patriots, Pavel Tenev, resigned on 17^th of May after a scandal broke out because a photograph appeared in Internet of him giving a Hitler salute to wax figures of Nazi officers in a museum in Paris.

Tenev resigns two days after he was appointed a deputy minister.

The old picture triggered demands for his resignation.

Commenting on the scandal around the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works from the quota of the United Patriots, Pavel Tenev, the Minister of Finance, Vladislav Goranov, commented that such behaviour was not acceptable.

“I'm sorry that things were overstated from one picture and I think the right decision was to resign. I'm just pleased with the fact that nobody is attacking me for my professional opportunities. I was in France, Madame Tussaud museum, you know, with the wax figures. There I took pictures with the wax figures of many famous people. Yes, maybe it was not the right thing I did, but it was done in a mocking style, I do not at all share this philosophy, “Tenev said.

Commenting on the scandal around the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works from the quota of the United Patriots, Pavel Tenev, whose old photograph with Nazi greetings has turned into the public space, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said that such behavior is unacceptable.

In a position by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) SP and PES, they urged the Prime Minister Boyko Borissov to release Tenev from the post, because, according to them, a man who had the cynicism and the incongruity to photograph how he gave a Nazi greeting, had no place in the government of Bulgaria.

DOST party stated that Bulgaria was the only country that had allowed far nationalists, described in a PACE report as fascists, to be in the government.