Boyko Borisov neither denied nor confirmed the news from Saturday on the website “24 Chasa” that the famous journalist is his candidate for Sofia
However, what did the leader of GERB from Plovdiv explain: It was accepted that if I promoted someone, I hated him, but now everyone sees that the candidates of our “non-coalition” partners are weak
39-year-old Anton Hekimyan has not picked up his mobile phone since Saturday after he emotionally parted ways with bTV after almost 20 years of faithful service at the first national private television station.
He did so on social media, and his bosses announced that they “immediately” accepted his resignation on Saturday, which was submitted for personal reasons. Otherwise, he held one of the most responsible directorial posts in any media – managing the news and current affairs shows. Years before that, Bulgarians woke up every weekday with Anton Hekimyan.
Calm and smiling, liked by viewers for the first two qualities. That’s probably why he got on the short list of GERB, who are looking for the person who, even if he doesn’t win Sofia, will bring a serious amount of votes for municipal councilors.
And as is known – the municipal council is even more important than the post of mayor,
when decisions are made for each city.
In the last two years, the capital parliament was managed by the same calm, smiling and dialogic 37-year-old man.
Georgi Georgiev may be part (or not) of this short list of six candidates for Sofia, about whom Boyko Borisov spoke on Sunday in Plovdiv. Yordanka Fandakova too late began to give way to the public appearances of the young lawyer, and he remained recognizable only to the narrowest fan circle of GERB.
The chairman of the Municipal Council, with the common name and surname for Bulgarians – Georgi Georgiev, has a sense of humor, knows how to find majorities even among his political opponents, but apparently in his own party they do not recognize him as a winner.
Millionaire Vasil Terziev, who already announced his candidacy on June 27
for mayor (after his name had been used since November last year), is recognized by both “Promyanata” and DB.
The election campaign of the 45-year-old entrepreneur, however, seems to have started with some delay, during that time he remained in the shadow of the well-known Boris Bonev and “Save Sofia”, who more often and more confidently appeared in actions around the capital’s neighborhoods .
Terziev had to explain for a long time about his relatives from “State Security” and about the first million won by his software company “Telerik”. It was sold nearly a decade ago for the then-record sum of 262.5 million dollars to an American company.
A few days ago, GERB may have discovered Terziev’s “twin” – 50-year-old Lyubomir Minchev,
who, according to unofficial and unconfirmed sources from the party, agreed to nominate him as a candidate for mayor, then perhaps changed his mind.
“24 Chasa” did not seek Minchev – our partner in educational projects, so as not to put him in a delicate situation.
Intelligent, smart, respected in the IT sector is the majority owner of Telelink Group Minchev. And as Terziev is a millionaire – the latest financial data of “Telelink” at the end of the ninth month of 2021 show that the company reports BGN 134.4 million in revenue, which is an increase of 42 percent for the year. The core business, with 2/3 of its revenue coming from projects in the UK and Germany, is designing, building and maintaining telecommunications solutions – public infrastructure such as smart cities, networks and equipment for the state, telecoms and other manufacturers. Lyubomir Minchev is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria, a member of the board of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, a mentor and former chairman of Endeavor Bulgaria (2018-2019), a mountaineer and an avid golfer.
We are describing all this because Minchev would have a chance to be liked by the people of Sofia, especially since he has implemented good projects with the municipality in Sofia, but he also lacks time and recognition.
All official and unofficial polls give Vasil Terziev a lead in the mayoral vote. For now. Everyone who knows him says he has charisma in face-to-face contact – which is probably why his current strategy is face-to-face meetings with Sofians, but he seems to lose it on screen or in public.
This is where the other line appears, along which the GERB strategists go to look for their man for the mayoral battle.
A man who would
be liked by the stronger and the weaker sex. No need to
explains who he is, because the time to get to know him is only a month, and by the time he likes it, the election might as well be over. This is what happened to Professor Anastas Gerdzhikov, the rector of the Sofia University, in the last presidential vote, whom the rightists today bitterly regret that they did not rate on merit before Rumen Radev.
The football player Boyko Borisov probably also looked at this sport, because he himself enjoys universal love when he steps out on the field. We do not believe that Hristo Stoichkov was on GERB’s list among the 20 beloved Bulgarians with a chance for the mayoral post, but the 44-year-old Stiliyan Petrov must have passed through the sieve.
A wonderful athlete – raised over 22 thousand at the charity “Match of Hope” this month, intelligent, passed with dignity through a serious health problem, but … a resident of Montana. An important requirement in the electoral law, which Petrov’s fans may have missed.
They say that Hekimyan was on the list a month ago
And he quickly moved to his forehead, because time is already in short supply for any mayoral candidate, even if he is nominated by GERB. Which makes recognizability and likability a very important quality.
Only Boyko Borisov and Tomislav Donchev – the narrowest filter for Sofia – know how many more journalists, athletes or IT specialists have dropped out of it.
At least as names, variants in the media revolved around the Speaker of the Parliament Rosen Zhelyazkov, the current Deputy Mayor of Sofia for Education and Culture Miroslav Borshosh, and especially that of Prof. Nikolay Gabrovski, who, although he did not become Prime Minister, headed the cabinet of GERB, was approved as a worthy candidate even by political opponents.
On Tuesday, when it is the last possible day to nominate candidate mayors, it may turn out that Hekimyan is not the favorite either, because I have six very good candidates and now, as soon as I get home, I will deal with it (according to Borisov from Plovdiv).
If social networks react negatively to the mayoral possibilities of the TV star (for now, they mostly remind that he is from Stara Zagora), the leader of GERB would reconsider. He did it another time.
Sociologist Andrey Raichev through BNT, however, gave a shoulder to Hekimyan, who had a place to get votes, and Vasil Terziyski – not. For his colleague Boryana Dimitrova from “Alpha Research”, Anton Hekimyan is well-known and will mobilize votes, but he needs time “to step into the mayor’s shoes”.
Borisov himself in Plovdiv explained the difficult situation in which he is working for the local vote:
3-4 months ago, it was assumed that if I promoted you as a candidate – figuratively speaking, I hated you. Now everyone sees that the candidates of our “non-coalition” partners are weak. They have been on the field for two months and they are only going downhill, because apart from hate, there is nothing else. And for Sofia, did I start to explain what was done and built… When you have built thousands of kilometers of streets, sidewalks, gardens, parks, fountains, tens of kilometers of subway, you will always find some crooked tile or pave. They had regional mayors who removed them because they failed, but this is a conversation about Sofia.
And it is clear that the big battle on October 29 will be for the capital. Two years after it was rumored that Yordanka Fandakova would not appear again, names were floated, but a clear or at least vaguely outlined profile of her successor did not appear.
And while Hekimyan does not pick up his phone for colleagues and friends, what he wrote on social networks only fuels the expectation: I cannot hide that the decision to take another direction is extremely difficult, but anyone who really knows me knows that I love challenges and I’m not afraid.
If he does run, it will be most difficult for the media, where he has worked for more than 20 years: if they cover him too much, they will be accused of bias, if not, they will be malicious.
For him, television is the roller coaster, but
dreamed of becoming an archaeologist
Back in 2004, I started at bTV as an intern. I was 20 years old then. In 19 years, I understood what it is to be dedicated to journalism, to love the people with whom fate meets you, and to learn from the lives of real people… I am happy that I participated in this journey. Battles, victories, joys, laughter, unforgettable characters, sometimes tears, but never regrets. bTV taught me discipline! With these words, the youngest director of news, current affairs and sports left the television. For him, his time there was a “roller coaster” – that’s how he described it some time ago in an interview for “24 Hours”.
He was born on May 22, 1984 in the family of a Bulgarian and an Armenian. He does not remember his Armenian grandparents well, but every weekend as a child he hurried to the house of those on his maternal side in Pastren. He helped them with the animals in the yard, watered the fruit trees, dug the garden. As a larger one, he even built a house for the chickens in the yard with a tiled roof.
The meekest child in the world – that’s how all his relatives describe him. He often went with his friends to the Ancient Forum in his hometown, making tools and looking for valuable finds. In fact, archeology, not journalism, was Hekimyan’s childhood dream.
“Now I think that for events like the taxi processions after the murder of 3-year-old Pepi in 2001, the siege of Parliament in 1997, the bombing in New York in 2001, I was glued to the screen. This clearly creates a more special attitude for you”, the journalist told how he turned to the profession. And in the last year of high school, he published in the literary magazine “Paths”.
In television, he goes through the entire ladder – intern, reporter, editor, presenter. He started in the morning block, since 2014 for more than 6 years he has been its face. And in the last nearly 3 years, he held the highest journalistic post at bTV.
2023-09-25 04:00:00
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