The election race heated up on Monday when incumbent President Petar Stoyanov presented a secret document discrediting former interior minister and presidential race opponent Bogomil Bonev, during a controversial debate on bTV.

Moderator Ivo Indjev read on camera parts of the December 1999 classified report from the National Security Service (NSS). The passage read refers to a group of people who used politicians for financial gain.

"The group uses the protection of high-placed politicians and state administration officers, and through Bogomil Bonev manages to settle at a key position in the country's governance," a paragraph in the document read.

"The minister of the interior imposes control and influences several principal areas of the economy, related to large profit and quick turnover of investments, namely telecommunications, multimedia, production and trade of licensed and excise goods (cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, CDs)."

Accusations against Bonev stated in the NSS report included passiveness of the Interior Ministry organs towards financial crimes committed by the group close to Bonev, and repressive measures applied by the same organs to competitors of the mentioned group.

Bonev's comment was that "the report was written without a single piece of proof and reference to a particular fact.

"The report was ordered, because the then interior minister was uncomfortable for the president and the premier."

Stoyanov took out the discrediting document to respond to Bonev's allegations that he accepted 1.5 million leva from the Russian businessman Michael Chernoy, ousted from Bulgaria, to cover expenses for the national gathering in Rozhen.

"Bonev was the first politician who started the game with Bulgarian business," Stoyanov said during the bTV debate. Turning to his opponent, Stoyanov added: "I accuse you, that, as a minister of the interior, instead of protecting Bulgaria from corruption, you were part of the corruption problem."

Prosecutor General Nikola Filchev told BTA on Monday that an investigation carried out last year after publications in the media, proved that no financial violations were connected to the Rozhen national gathering, whose patron was the president.

"I think the intellectual level of President Stoyanov rules out the possibility that he gets involved in shady financial affairs to gain personal benefit," Filchev added.

Filchev's press attache Nikolai Markov announced on Tuesday that the prosecutor general ordered preliminary investigations and inquests related into the secret report presented during the bTV debate, and accusation acts were even filed in court.

After the debate, the public and the media engaged in a discussion over whether Stoyanov was in his lawful, moral and political right to use the document against Bonev.

Representatives of the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) and the ruling National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) stood up for the candidate they have chosen to support in the elections, while members of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) condemned Stoyanov's move.

"Stoyanov was the only one with dignity," UDF Chair Ekaterina Mihailova said. "He was brave and valiant enough to say the names and facts related to corruption."

Plamen Panayotov, floor leader of the NMSII parliamentary group, said that Stoyanov did not violate the law by taking out the document, because the report was handed to the prosecution.

According to the comments of BSP deputy chair Roumen Ovcharov, Stoyanov was the one who lost most from the debate because it transpired that he had hidden the report for two years without taking action with regard to it.

MRF MP Lyutvi Mestan said that the dispute was low on an emotional level and turned into an everyday squabble. He added that the definite loser after Monday evening was the presidential institution.

On Slavi Trifonov's show on Tuesday, Stoyanov said that he felt uncomfortable about what he did in the debate, but added, "I am not a dupe and I could not remain silent."