Bulgaria Needs Presidential System, ABV Leader Says

Bulgaria's former President Georgi Parvanov has asserted that his Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV) party will win the presidential election this autumn, a major goal for his party in the next few months.

Parvanov has added he will also work to create a presidential system in Bulgaria in the long-term.

ABV, which does not have an official candidate as of Sunday (but party structures reportedly back Parvanov as one of the potential candidates), May 15, pulled out of Bulgaria's coalition government earlier this week. 

Parvanov has already served two consecutive terms as President, and it is not clear whether he will be barred from running for a third one. He left the office in 2012, with incumbent Rosen Plevneliev taking over.

The former head of state told delegates at ABV's national conference is party would seek "to win the presidential elections and to impose a new model of governance."

"We might come second in the first round, but we will end up first in the run-off," news website Dnevnik.bg quotes him as saying.

Parvanov, under whose presidency Bulgaria maintained closer ties with Russia than it does now (with Bulgaria agreeing to carry out major energy projects with Gazprom that were later abandoned), said "the new head of state will restore ties with Russia" and will not be "the permanently absent [actor] in Balkan dialogue," restoring Bulgaria's "role as a Balkan leader".

He also emphasized his party would work to attract "similar parties, but without imposing leadership," in an apparent reference to the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) which Parvanov and other key ABV members left in 2014.

Calls have emerged again for a renewal of dialogue between BSP, the biggest opposition party in Bulgaria, and ABV since a leadership change in the socialist party last week.

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