/ world today news/ “I don’t see Plevneliev in a second presidential term. In my opinion, for now, the most likely candidate from GERB will be Boyko Borisov. From time to time, he makes various rumors that he may not run for office, but I still think that Borisov will be the candidate of GERB.” This is how sociologist Zhivko Georgiev commented on the consequences of the elections in Sarnitsa and the upcoming elections for local government and next year for president.
– The elections in Sarnitsa were announced as a dress rehearsal for the actual local elections. Do you agree with this finding?
– I am not inclined to see any model in Sarnitsa that will tell us what will happen in the local elections in October. Not only because Sarnitsa is a special municipality from an ethno-religious point of view. It is simply representative of one or two families and another ten or fifteen people and nothing more, so it cannot be a syndrome for the state of the country as a whole, nor was it any surprise that DPS won these local elections. It was also no surprise that, for various reasons, the “Reformers” had a relatively good performance, which, however, is unlikely to be repeated and evident in other similar settlements. When in such small settlements as Sarnitsa DPS there is no complete dominant, then everything could sometimes be explained by interpersonal, inter-village and other similar relations and tensions. Too much attention seems to have been given to this vote. It is not a dress rehearsal, just something highly predictable, containing no surprises.
– However, after the first round, at least from the outside, it seemed that the forces of GERB and the “Reformer Block” would unite, which did not happen, and maybe that’s why Mestan called the victory of DPS “historic”?
– There is a certain influence of GERB in this area, but the achievement of the “Reformer Bloc” is accidental, due to some coincidence of circumstances, and for this reason it cannot be reproduced in any municipality similar to Sarnitsa. I am not well informed enough as to what is due to the relatively decent performance of the “Reformer Bloc”, I have not worked in the field in this municipality, but I guess it is a matter of a short excursion to understand the reasons. But in principle, it is clear that the “Reformer Bloc” has no weight in this type of municipalities, in particular even through Korman Ismailov.
In my opinion, this is the recapitulation of this type of election. They are not a normal type of election with ambitious platforms, with media presence, with social networks and so on. It’s very much a kinship-patriarchal scheme and some other stuff. Undoubtedly, within the DPS, which controls itself very well and largely the electorate, some interpersonal, intergroup, intergenerational tensions have arisen before in Sarnitsa around some natural leaders in the municipality. But it clearly has nothing to do with the talk that the DPS has lost this control, as has been rumored recently.
– Why didn’t the BSP even try to attend the elections in Sarnitsa?
– It is quite natural that the BSP does not participate if there is no party organization there. The Olympic principle that participation is most important does not apply in such cases. It is unlikely that the BSP did it for some cunning reasons, there is simply no chance of success. Not only in Sarnitsa, but also in other similar municipalities, the BSP has long since given up playing. This may be an echo of the times when the DPS was a strategic ally of the BSP, but right now the left is not in a condition to take any initiatives in this direction.
– In other words, you do not foresee any significant changes in the local elections?
– No, the elections are completely different, especially when they are on a national scale, local elections, when both regional and national communications are going on in parallel. There is already something else. In any other election, in any other municipality, there is much more charge for some ideas for a forecast than this election in Sarnitsa.
– Now a new intrigue is looming. According to your colleague, the Americans will lobby for the candidacy of Rosen Plevneliev for a second presidential term, and if Boyko Borisov decides to run for office, there will be a clash with unknown consequences. What do you think about such a hypothetical turn of events?
– To be honest, I don’t see Plevneliev in a second presidential term. I have no idea of any decisive plans, I have no idea of international engineering in this direction, and nothing makes me think at this stage that this is possible. In my opinion, for now the most likely candidate from the GERB side will be Boyko Borisov. From time to time, he makes various rumors that he may not run for office, but I continue to think that Borisov will be the candidate of GERB.
– True, we are talking about elections until next year, but that’s how it went. However, many doubt that Borisov will lose the real power of a prime minister in order to take the post of president, one, more or less, facade power?
– From now on, all elections will be under the sign of the next ones. There is such a determination that things go from the future to the present, which is typical, by the way, of the strategies of politicians. Perhaps it is even reasonable that it should be. Naturally, under the current constitutional order, the real power rests with the prime minister. But the rather modest and narrow constitutional powers of the president are one-handed. Because if the president controls the strongest party, if he enjoys its support and has personal authority, then his power is greater than the formal rules allow. So if Boyko Borissov retains his current political influence and simply changes his job, be sure that the Bulgarian Prime Minister will have much more real power than he demonstrates today. Informal levers have always been very strong, especially in terms of actual power. Boyko Borisov has already shown that he uses informal levers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. You could even say that if he is an expert in anything, it is in this.
– Will the BSP be able to overcome its internal problems and the isolation that emerged after the last elections?
– It would be good to succeed as the only real opposition. But is it possible? There is nothing to justify such success from an external point of view, it depends on the BSP itself and the processes that take place in it and what results they will lead to. Because they can run these processes, but will they lead to centrifugal tendencies, to fault lines inside the party. This has repeatedly happened with other influential political formations, if we think of the SDS 1, for example, as it happened with the NDSV, which was, if only for a short time, the biggest political force. It can also happen with GERD. But no one can commit and predict what exactly will happen – neither Mikhail Mikov nor Sergey Stanishev, because they themselves don’t know. The problems are more than it is possible to manage. The BSP is a victim of systematic non-resolution of the identity issue; of a systematic demonstration of low managerial capacity when in power; of systematically showing poor fitness when in opposition. The capacity of a party is not created by a single Congress, nor by the personality and efforts of a single leader, especially of parties with a history like the BSP. But I say it would be good for him to come out of the bottom, because it is important to have a strong opposition, a possible left, when he is in power. This is good for everyone, especially in the socio-economic mess we are in.
– Will the “Reformer Bloc” be able to maintain its integrity amid the centrifugal forces that have often torn it apart since it was in power?
– He might be able to hold on. But the “Reformist Bloc” lost too much in these few months, and in a moral-political sense. This drive of RB to consume power after the rather long drought out of power, however, greatly reduces the motives for support from all those who did it. The “reformer bloc” succeeded before, not because it put together quite a few small, small-scale right-wing projects in a single formula, but because in the public space it managed to create some credit of trust, credit for the capacity to make reforms, here and there it did good expertise. But I think that there is not much left of all this, because RB has dealt themselves strong moral blows, they have not shown much of a reformist drive, so it will be very difficult for them. The Bloc was conceived, whether it was clearly articulated or not, as an alternative to GERB – an authentic right-wing alternative to the not-so-authentic right-wing GERB project. But excuse me, even GERD is developing in a positive direction and has shown a positive development, at least in the visible part of his behavior, as a communication style compared to the first term. While the “Reformation Bloc” showed that it has not forgotten anything bad and learned nothing good.
– Do you think that the idea of a referendum together with the local vote will become a reason for new upheavals between the DPS and the others?
– To be honest, from the very beginning I am quite indifferent to the cause of this referendum. I don’t see in it the potential to become something radical like a change in political life. I feed no hopes, feed no illusions, and cannot turn me on at all. It’s not that I don’t have a position on these ideas, which aren’t even entirely clear, but I only see narrow partisan accounts. In 25 years with similar accounts, we have nothing new.
– How do you see the ruling coalition with all its elements and parts after the local elections?
– There are certain challenges to this broad majority. Some will achieve expansion of their influence, others will not be able to take root in the local government. To some extent, this simulated equality between the partners will be destroyed on some levels, because there will be one big winner and some very small partners, which will undoubtedly create problems, create some temptations for the big ones and some complexes for the little ones. But still I think there is enough resource and with creaking, pushing, slowly, with nothing-doing in many areas and partial forms, this majority has a chance to continue to function. Even if one of the partners drops out, there is enough free resource in the parliament for parliamentary support.
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