site.btaDonka Mihailova, Nikolai Ivanov Elected to BSP Leadership

Donka Mihailova, Nikolai Ivanov Elected to BSP Leadership

Sofia, November 28 (BTA) - The National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) on Saturday elected Donka Mihailova and Nikolai Ivanov to the party's Executive Bureau on a proposal by leader Mihail Mikov.

Mihailova is serving a second term as mayor of Troyan and was MP in the 40th National Assembly. Ivanov is former mayor of Vratsa and Krivodol. At the previous BSP plenum on November 15 Iliyana Yotova, Dragomir Stoynev and Kaloyan Pargov stepped down from the party's leadership.

The BSP National Council will decide the agenda, the date and the venue of the upcoming party congress in January but it will likely be scheduled between April 11 and 30, 2016.

The upcoming congress is extremely important to the future of the party and to the country's democratic development and prospects for welfare state, said BSP leader Mihail Mikov said, addressing the plenum.

Mikov said that inner party problems should not be aired in the media as this did not help the image of the party. The New Left is an idea and not a mechanical collection of formations, which have a common history with the BSP, he added.

Mikov also commented the 2016 draft budget. According to the BSP leadership,
the 2016 budget threatens the social peace in the country. "The budget leads to more poverty, inequalities, social disintegration and ultimately undermines the structure of society and the state. It projects visions about government which threaten the internal security and the ethnic peace," said Mikov.

Mikov noted the ongoing attempts to push Bulgaria into a quasi-war rhetoric with Russia as well as the lack of a Bulgarian position on developments in the Middle East and Northern Africa. "The incumbent never cease to demonstrate the lack of a balanced foreign policy," said Mikov. "The President sees himself as a hawk, and the government as some kind of birds too. In any case, there is no will to defend the national interest," he said.