Stanishev: No Three-Way Coalition for Presidential Elections

Bulgarian soialist leader and former Prime Minister of the country, Sergey Stanishev. File photo

Bulgaria's former ruling three-way coalition will not participate with a common candidate in the upcoming presidential elections in the fall of 2011, Sergey Stanishev, leader of the leftist Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) announced Tuesday.

" The three-way coalition is not an appropriate format for the Presidential election, because of the unjustly bad image it received," Stanishev said, as cited by the Dnevnik daily. The coalition consisted of BSP, the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS and National Movement for Stability and Prosperity, the centrist party of the country's former Tsar and PM Simeon Saxe-Coburg.

Asked whether BSP will endorse Meglena Kuneva, Bulgaria's former European Commissioner, for the presidential elections, Stanishev stated his party has not yet focused on a particular candidate.

One of the criteria, which BSP approved for eligible presidential candidates at their meeting on Saturday, is that he/she should be popular in the European Union institutions, thus hinting the prospect of supporting Meglena Kuneva, in her potential presidential bid.

However, Bulgaria's constitution requires that candidates for president are eligible only if they have lived in the country over the last five years, a condition that Kuneva, who was connected with the former Tsar's party, does not meet as she lived in Brussels, her opponents say.

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