Socialists with a political resolution at the 50th Congress of the BSP want the termination of Ninova’s mandate – 2024-02-23 13:31:55

/View.info/ About the state of the country and the tasks of the BSP

Political resolution of the 50th BSP Congress
Sofia, February 11, 2023

Today, the vast majority of Bulgarian citizens face severe social and humanitarian hardships on a daily basis: the prohibitive prices of food and medicine, drastic inequalities, hard-to-reach healthcare, and injustices in the workplace. Falling voter turnout over the past year shows that the majority is less and less reliant on elections as a way to overcome them.

This is a sentence for parties that are unable to provide the necessary governance with a functioning parliament and responsible government. Expectations for the return of the majority of voters to the polls on April 2 as a result of some new compelling messages or the return of the paper ballot are also an illusion.

This breakdown in trust in parties and institutions is extremely dangerous, because it destroys the power of the state to guarantee the life and dignity of citizens, to eliminate market speculation, and to affirm Bulgaria’s international authority.

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During the last period, the BSP launched a number of important social initiatives, similar to the anti-crisis measures at the European level. However, for the fourth time, the party failed to realize a mandate to form a government.

Public opinion polls indicate that the results for the BSP in the upcoming elections on April 2 will be without significant change, which once again assigns it the unenviable and humiliating place of a third-rate force in the next parliament. Such a result would be detrimental to the party’s performance in October’s local elections.

There is a real threat to the decline of the BSP as a recognizable political force. The reason is the collapsed confidence in the BSP as a party capable of offering a different quality of politics and governance, open to equal interaction with a wide range of other left-wing parties, initiatives and civil formations.

This collapse of trust is due to a whole complex of reasons, the immediate one being the complete change of course imposed by K. Ninova:

• the replacement of the party’s socialist ideological foundations with populism, “left conservatism” and dilettantism;

• the transformation of the party into a leadership party contrary to the principle of democratic unity;

• trampling on the congressional decision against the “left-right” collaboration, depersonalizing the left, with the participation of Petkov in the government;

• the imposition of permanent leaders with dubious professional qualities on lists with repeated electoral defeats, instead of the promotion of alternative candidates with high public authority;

• the unprincipled reversal of position on the method of voting.

There are far deeper reasons for the party’s large-scale loss of positions in society. Such are the changing social-class structures, the demographic processes, the anti-socialist propaganda, which give rise to the existential question, what kind of socialist party is necessary and adequate to the new realities in the world and in our country.

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However, this does not negate the need for immediate decisive action to contain further collapse. For this purpose, the Congress adopts the following decisions:

1. It states that in its current state, the BSP cannot begin to restore the lost trust in society and expand its electoral support.

2. Tasks the municipal and regional structures to ensure the promotion and confirmation as candidates for the extraordinary parliamentary elections of socialists with high authority and proven professionalism in the local communities and to resolutely resist pressure from members of the party’s governing bodies with promises of career development or material benefits.

3. In the 49th National Assembly, the BSP should not enter into agreements for the participation or support of governments nominated by GERB, PP or DB, while at the same time assisting in the adoption of laws with a clear social and democratic orientation.

4. Declares the termination of the mandate of Cornelia Ninova as party chairperson according to her resignation as an act of taking personal responsibility for the party’s crisis situation. Revokes its decision to refuse to acknowledge the submitted resignation as harmful to the recovery of the party.

5. Instructs the National Council to immediately elect a deputy chairman of the BSP in accordance with Article 17, para. 2 of the Statute, determined and able to create a new organization to participate in the upcoming national and local elections, as well as to begin a comprehensive renewal of the party in implementation of the present Political Resolution, providing full assistance for this purpose.

George Pirinski

Zahari Zahariev

Dimitar Dubov

Atanas Merdzhanov

Plamen Mladenov

Sergey Stanishev

Yavor Kuyumdzhiev

Valery Zablyanov

Yuri Aslanov

Vanya Dobreva

Anna Pirinska

Katya Nikolova

Rumen Petkov

10.02.2023