Bulgarian Socialists Mull Stand on President's Political Project

It is expected the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and former PM, Sergey Stanishev (pictured), would take a stand Saturday during a party leadership meeting on the political project of President Parvanov. Photo by BGNES

The National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is convening Saturday for the first time after the party's congress in October.

The official agenda includes discussion on the Socialist budget 2011 and Bulgaria 2020 projects, but it is expected the meeting would be topped by debates on the new civic initiative, ABV, launched by Bulgarian President, and former BSP leader, Georgi Parvanov.

Until now the Socialists have not issued a common position on ABV regarding possible competition or partnership with it.

The current BSP leader, Sergey Stanishev, declared during the October congress the party is not a voters' reservoir, words, unnamed sources say, he later had to explain to Parvanov.

On Friday, Stanishev, who is the previous Bulgarian Prime Minister, offered a mixed assessment by saying partnership with the new initiative was natural, but also voicing doubts in the Head of State's promises that ABV would not turn into a political party, and adding any BSP member is free to join NGOs, but when it comes to a political formation, they must make a choice.

It is expected the former PM would open the Saturday National Council meeting with his position on the President's political project and would offer a balanced approach since, currently, ABV, is indeed still an initiative.

Several key people in the party oppose Parvanov and have urged the leadership to quickly take a stand against his project, such as Georgi Kadiev, the BSP nominee for Mayor of Sofia last year, BSP Organizational Secretary, Evgeni Uzunov, Member of the Parliament, Deputy Speaker and former Speaker, Georgi Pirinski, MP and former Interior Minister, Mihail Mikov.

On the other hand side, the five Socialists MPs, who attended the forum, introducing ABV – Kiril Dobrev, Maya Manalova, Stefan Danailov, Ivelin Nikolov, and Evgeniy Zhelev, are members of the National Council. They will, most likely, defend Saturday the idea of close partnership with Parvanov's project.

Meanwhile, former Energy Minister and also Socialist MP, Rumen Ovcharov, said in a Saturday interview for Darik radio, he did not see a risk of ABV splitting BSP, adding he applauded anything new and interesting in the left-wing space.

Bulgaria's President convened on Thursday a national summit on his future political project named Alternative for Bulgarian Revival, the Bulgarian acronym being ABV (the first three letters of the Bulgarian alphabet), which he claimed was not a party, but only an initiative.

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