Mikov’s Election to Cement Status Quo at BSP - Analysts

With the election of Mikov, "Stanishev is leaving to stay," political scientist Ognyan Minchev believes. Photo by BGNES

The election of Mihail Mikov as head of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) will maintain the status quo at the party, political analysts told bTV channel on Monday.

According to Mariya Pirgova, with Mikov’s election at the top post on Sunday the BSP has broken away from its image of being a party of Bulgaria’s 25-year long transition to political democracy, while Ognyan Minchev believes that BSP has yet to prove itself as a modern political formation capable of expanding its influence among the younger generations of Bulgarian citizens.

Minchev said that Mikov’s election will cement the status quo within the party which, he believes, will mean BSP will be faced once again with the same old issues of alleged collaboration with shady economic groupings while in power and failure to prevent its term of government from ending in collapse of statehood. Or, as Minchev put it, “Stanishev is leaving to stay”.

Mariya Pirgova believes that with Mikov at the helm of the party, which is facing early parliamentary elections this autumn, the BSP will prevent a split within its ranks.

At the 48th Congress of the BSP on Sunday Mikov won a run-off vote against outgoing Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev to succeed Sergey Stanishev who has headed the party for the past 13 years.

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