site.btaPES President Stanishev: Presidential Elections Are The Biggest Test for Left Wing This Year

PES President Stanishev: Presidential  Elections Are The Biggest Test for Left Wing This Year

Sofia, January 11 (BTA) - The presidential elections this year will be the biggest test for the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Left wing, the President of the Party of European Socialists and former BSP leader Sergei Stanishev, said here Monday. He was speaking at a ceremony which BSP traditionally holds at the start of the new year for the press and in which the participants each have a piece of banitsa cheese pie with fortune slips.

Stanishev believes that the Left is capable of nominating a presidential candidate who is capable of winning the elections. He stressed that BSP should show a broad approach to the process of selecting a candidate. "We must reach out and initiate dialogue with the other Left formations," he said.

Stanishev said that the first year of the second Boyko Borissov government was a period of feigned reforms and stability illusions. "Early elections are always possible in Bulgaria," he said. "The question is whether the power-holders would precipitate early elections due to the political situation or some political considerations of their own."

The PES President also commented the chances of UNESCO DIrector General Irina Bokova to be elected UN Secretary General and said it is an opportunity which must not be wasted "due to somebody's personal, political or ad hoc interests". "As far as I know, Bokova is the official candidate of the Bulgarian government but this must show in an active international campaign," said Stanishev.

Actually, the Bulgarian government has not yet announced its official nominee for the highest UN job and two persons are widely seen as equally likely nominations: Bokova and European Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva.

Stanishev dismissed the fears for the future of the EU and said it is changing, not falling apart. He said though that "Europe is inert and its people are closing in their tribal identity within their national and subnational borders".

In the new year, PES will keep its ambition to show an alternative road for the EU, said the party President.

The fortune Stanishev found in his banitsa piece was for travel to far-away places and return home to a love awaiting him.