site.btaMedia Review: August 22

Bulgarian Nurgyul Salimova's second place at the Women's World Cup in Baku and the latest exchanges between the President and the power-holders dominate the media on Tuesday.

CHESS

The print and electronic media comment on Bulgarian chess player Nurgyul Salimova's performance at the Women's World Cup where she lost to Russia's Aleksandra Goryachkina by 1.5:2.5 points in a tiebreak.

Trud looks at Salimova's amazing career - she was a European champion at 8 and a world champion at 12 in youth championships. At 20, she has joined the world's elite among women players.

Segabg.com says Salimova's achievement is the greatest since Antoaneta Stefanova (2004-2006) and Veselin Topalov (2005-2006) were FIDE World Champions.

Mediapool.bg headlines its article "Bickering and Legal Disputes: Why There's No State Funding for Nurgyul and Chess".  It emerged from an earlier bTV interview with Salimova's coach, Zhivko Zhekov, that a sponsor covered the player's expenses for the first five days of the tournament and that she hopes to pay for the rest from her prize money. Zhekov said: "When there is success, many people line up for photos. When we look for money, we meet silence." Mediapool.bg comments that "the best illustration of these words is Delyan Peevski MP of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, who travelled to Baku to support Nurgyul in the tiebreak, but it is not clear if he just rooted for her or supported her in any different way." The problems in the Bulgarian Chess Federation (BCF) started in 2014 when it was banned from organizing championships and tournaments under FIDE's aegis in the wake of corruption allegations against its then president Silvio Danailov.

In contrast, Yavor Evtimov, a journalist at segabg.com, told the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) the state is not to blame - it is the chess community that has led this sport into decline. The solution is for the numerous federations to unite and work together. Now there are six chess federations in Bulgaria, of which BCF 2022 is the one licensed by the Youth and Sports Ministry. However, this federation is not recognized by FIDE, which has put a commission headed by Romania's Daniel Florea representing FIDE and Albania's Erald Dervishi representing the European Chess Union in charge of Bulgarian chess until a president of a single federation is elected. Paradoxically, the commission has named one national team for the FIDE World Women's Team Championship in Poland in September, while the licensed chess federation has named another lineup. Nurgyul is in both, but they will have different captains. The Sports Ministry cannot provide major financing to chess because the state supports mostly Olympic sports and those most successful in world and European championships, Evtimov said.

In a Nova TV interview, Salimova's coach said that unlike the other finalists, the player was alone in Baku. She paid a friend of hers to stay in a separate room because she had no team with her. The coach added that Nurgyul has not realized yet what she has done, but when she does, she will be very happy and pleased and will be gratified with the emotions she evoked in Bulgaria.

Former BCF executive director Nikolay Velchev said on the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) Nurgyul managed to unite the Bulgarians like the football internationals did in 1994 when they placed fourth in the World Cup finals in the United States. "She made us happy and proud," Velchev said.

POLITICS

In an analysis in 24 Chasa, sociologist Vasil Tonchev from the Sova Harris polling institute says President Rumen Radev personifies the opposition and is likely to turn this political capital into a political project around the end of his second term in 2026. The two coalitions which enjoy the strongest support, Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) and GERB-UDF, are running the country together, and the opposition in Parliament is very weak. This gives Radev a chance to fill in the vacuum and offer an alternative to the policy pursued by the government. Having positioned himself in opposition, he may back a new political entity, says Tonchev.

Trud comments the President will turn into a figurehead once key legislation which gives him various powers is revised. The proposed amendments to the Constitution are also designed to curtail his powers. The idea now is to limit the President's clout in various public spheres, from security to the central bank to the Communications Regulation Commission, the Council for Electronic Media and the Constitutional Court. A working group is analysing several laws with a view to curbing the President's powers, MPs of the ruling coalition told the daily. They believe the Bulgarian Socialist Party is likely to back the revisions, judging from its indignation at Radev's attempts to run the country single-handed.

On Tuesday, bTV asked political analyst Dimitar Avramov and sociologist Andrey Raychev to comment on the President's talk on August 19 of a people's movement in defence of Bulgaria's National Day, March 3, as opposed to calls for celebrating May 24 (the Day of the Bulgarian Alphabet, Education and Culture and of Slav Letters) as the National Day. Avramov said Radev was doing something he should avoid doing because the President should set a positive agenda. As to the National Day, Avramov said it is a symbol and cannot be erased overnight. For his part, Raychev commented that 70% of Bulgarians are in favour of March 3 as the National Day and 60% say no to Bulgarian arms supplies to Ukraine. There is a huge gap which is not covered by an elite. The Bulgarians are unrepresented but they are not impatient to go to elections. There is a party without a leadership and that party is so big that it will sweep the opponent, the sociologist said.

Political analyst Alexander Marinov commented on BNT that the President does not need to drum up support because he is not running for election - Radev stands up for certain positions. In Marinov's view, there is a crisis of legitimacy and it cannot be overcome simply by the fact that the government is still standing. The only justification for the existence of the unlikely alliance of CC-DB and GERB-UDF is to get the results society needs, but so far there are none, said Marinov.

Interviewed by BNR, political analyst Atanas Radev said the President's messages were perceived as of some kind of political revanchism. The President can play a very important role in crisis situations, but during the crises of the last two years "the presidential institution seems to have forgotten that it is not a power centre". His reference to a national movement in defence of March 3 raises the question who those people are and whom Radev is trying to represent, said the analyst.

FOREIGN POLICY

24chasa.bg quotes the government information service as saying that Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov will welcome his Greek and Romanian counterparts, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Ion-Marcel Ciolacu, on October 9. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Moldovan President Maia Sandu have also been invited. This was agreed at Monday's informal meeting of the leaders of ten Southeast European countries in Athens.

***

The media report that Defence Minister Todor Tagarev, who is on an unannounced visit to Odesa, said the Bulgarian Parliament could ratify by the end of September the resolution to provide Ukraine with armoured personnel carriers which are sitting in the warehouses of the Interior Ministry.

Mediapool.bg quotes Tagarev as saying: "Bulgaria will continue to provide comprehensive support to Ukraine. Our commitment remains unwavering and is based on our shared values and age-old historical ties."

OCTOBER 29 LOCAL ELECTIONS

Election expert Stoil Stoilov told BNR the October 29 local elections should be held without machine voting, because the machines have not brought any benefits. He argued that Parliament should tackle some technical matters in the Election Code, which concern a huge number of participants. He suggests a two-week interval (instead of one week) between the two rounds would allow the political forces to form local coalitions and seek support; Election Day could be shorter than the current 13 hours; the chairpersons and the secretaries of section election commissions should be employed by the Central Election Commission on a temporary basis instead of being party representatives. The expert said the ballot and the tally sheet should be improved, adding: "If they see this ballot somewhere in Africa, they will beat the person who designed it with sticks."

Veselin Todorov, CEO of Ciela Norma - the company that provides and maintains the voting machines, told BNT it should be decided what the home screen will look like. The four-in-one elections will be complicated: the home screen must show what is being elected and which elections the voter wants to participate in. Then, things will be more difficult for people who do not have the right to vote in all kinds of elections.

HOME AFFAIRS

Interviewed by Nova TV about the August 16 killing of businessman Alexey Petrov, crime expert Botyo Botev said it was a good thing the investigators had managed to keep information from the public. Botev said that while he was head of the Homicide Unit of the National Police General Directorate, he kept outsiders, including ministers, away from the crime scene.

***

Union of International Hauliers Executive Director Yordan Arabadjiev commented on Nova TV that the new measures against driving under the influence create more problems than they solve. He was referring to the seizure of vehicles of drivers caught with blood alcohol concentrations exceeding 1.2 per mille. It is not clear what will happen to the freight if this measure is applied to trucks which are not owned by the drivers. This would cost the transport operator EUR 10 per hour, Arabadjiev said.

Road safety expert Krassimir Georgiev told bTV that the vehicle cannot be confiscated at the time the driver gets off it. He was quoting lawyers as saying that the vehicle is physical evidence in a lawsuit.

SOCIETY

24 Chasa frontpages a story about 59 wealthy Bulgarians who are selling houses at over EUR 1 million each.