"Fear is shaking DPS. I'm talking about the apparatus," Korman Ismailov, former head of the youth organisation of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), told BNR.

According to him, the party, which came second in June's parliamentary elections, is no longer run as it once was - by a figurehead leader with honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan lurking behind. "The control is now in the hands of Delyan Peevski (co-leader of the party since February this year). He has managed to take control of the party's governing bodies - he has put his own people in the Central Operational Bureau. He has a lot of experience in taking over businesses and companies. Ahmed Dogan has lost control," Ismailov said.

According to him, Peevski knows how to use information, create and manipulate dependencies. "DPS is a tool - before it was Dogan's, now Peevski is taking it over," he added.

"The new start for DPS is a fact. Those who don't understand this are stuck in the past," Peevski said at a recent working meeting with DPS mayors, as quoted by the party's press centre. Peevski is among those sanctioned for corruption under the Magnitsky Act.