site.btaMedia Review: September 17

OCTOBER 27 EARLY PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

24 Chasa reports that former prime minister and ex-leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Sergei Stanishev is expected to top a candidate list of the BSP-led United Left coalition in the snap elections at the end of next month. Some incumbent Socialist MPs will keep their leading candidate positions: Borislav Gutsanov, Ivan Ivanov, Deyan Dechev and Petar Kanev. Representatives of coalition parties are also expected to top some of the lists.

The same daily writes that mayors Dimitar Nikolov of Burgas and Zhivko Todorov of Stara Zagora will certainly run for Parliament on top of GERB's candidate lists.

In a two-page interview for 24 Chasa, Assoc. Prof. Dr Svetoslav Zhivkov tells about voting practices in Bulgaria since the liberation in 1878.

Telegraph has interviewed sociologist Elena Darieva on two full inside pages. She says that the election campaign will be costly because of the higher stakes in the elections and may be marred by institutional problems and subject to various technological and legal stunts. Given the power struggle among the political players, the campaign will be difficult, especially for the leading political entities which are desperate to evade an answer to the essential question about their possible partners in government. There is no solid foundation in sight for building future coalitions. This dooms the October 27 elections to an even lower voter turnout - unless some emergency development brings a radical change in the situation. "All Bulgarian politicians are making a major mistake by carrying out an identical campaign and speaking identical things for years now," Darieva points out. She says that at least five entities are claiming to attract the former electorate of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF): three breakaway parties from the MRF: Korman Ismailov's People's Party for Freedom and Dignity, Gyuner Tahir's National Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and Taner Alimolla's Democrats for Responsibility, Freedom and Tolerance (DOST), plus the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (the faction behind Ahmed Dogan), and MRF-New Beginning (around Delyan Peevski). Part of the establishment parties aspire to make substantial electoral inroads in ethnically mixed areas like Kardzhali, Razgrad, Silistra, Targovishte and Shumen, the sociologist notes. "The electoral erosion is inevitable, but what is more important is that the future of the entity itself is at risk," she comments. In her opinion, a technocrat cabinet with an expert prime minister and a governance programme agreed in advance stands a chance of legitimacy as a formula to run the country against the background of the expected fragmentation of the legislature. Asked about the idea to introduce a mixed majoritarian and proportional-representation system, Darieva says that voters are put off politics and refuse to go to the polls because parties are unable to produce a convincing narrative of the future at least for their own voters and not because of a particular electoral system.    

Interviewed on Bulgarian National Radio Tuesday morning, sociologist Genoveva Petrova of Alpha Research argued that the political crisis can be solved if before the elections the political forces honestly tell their voters with whom they would coalesce to govern. "Ever fewer people who independently and authentically decide whom to support participate in elections, and the election results are ever more a function of some form of non-free voting," Petrova commented. In her words, the core of the MRF supporters remain behind the Dogan faction because of the authority he has built over the years. The Peevski faction lacks such strong authorities to attract those voters if they are to make their choice spontaneously. A large part of the MRF voters, to the extent that they can make their own decisions, can be expected not to vote and not to back any of the factions claiming their support, the sociologist pointed out.

In www.segabg.com, Lyudmil Iliev argues that the only thing that Boyko Borisov wants is that his primacy be acknowledged and, accordingly, that GERB-UDF be mandated to form a cabinet. "It is a matter of pride for GERB's leader and also a matter of cabinet portfolios for the GERB party top crust. As well as a matter of getting the MRF back in circulation, which most probably means seeing yet again Peevski, who is close to Borissov, heavily overshadow the post-election political combination," the analyst writes.

JUDICIARY

In an analysis in www.dnevnik.bg, Velislav Velichkov lists several reasons why the incumbent complement of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) must not and has no legal grounds to initiate procedures for the election of a new prosecutor general and a new president of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC): the term of office of this SJC expired nearly two years ago; it got involved in several tremendous gaffes and nearly wrecked the judicial system by completely ruining the prestige of the judiciary and destroyed all concepts of morality and integrity by the scandals it generated precisely in the process of electing and protecting the prosecutor general; the SJC has been sitting in an incomplete complement for almost two years now, its Plenum currently being four members short (two of the Judges Chamber and two of the Prosecutors Chamber). When a new prosecutor general and a new SAC president are elected, the SJC will consist of 20 instead of 25 members because the term of the SAC president will have expired as well. "The only possible and legally legitimate move of the SJC at this point is to launch immediately a procedure for the election of its members from the professional quotas of judges, prosecutors and investigating magistrates and to address the National Assembly directly for the election, at long last, of the parliamentary quota, so that the SJC's new complement could be instituted," the analyst argues.

WAR IN UKRAINE

In an analysis contributed to 24 Chasa, Valeri Naydenov lists four options open to the US President for addressing the situation in Ukraine: first, leaving Kyiv to crash and people to flee the cold, famine and bombs during the winter; second, doing nothing and keeping the US drip-feeding support so as to prevent Ukraine's surrender for another five or ten years; third, escalating the conflict by sending NATO troops, fifth-generation fighters and longer-range missiles capable of reaching Moscow - and surely incurring nuclear war; and fourth: negotiating for peace.

TRUMP'S SECOND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

On a full inside page, Trud covers the alleged second assassination attempt against former US President Donald Trump under the headline "Zelensky Fan Tried to Kill Donald Trump" and a subtitle "Recruited Foreigners to Fight against Putin". In the same daily, Viktor Blaskov comments that "the deep state is panic-stricken" after a second assassination attempt fails to stop Trump. "What they fail to realize is that for the time being every time they try to eliminate Trump his support grows, and he himself gets ever more self-assured and rallies ever more allies." "Every normal person feels that they must take the side of Trump. This is a historic chance of the US and the whole world," Blaskov concludes.

Telegraph runs a similar story, headlined "Ukraine Fen Tried to Kill Trump" and subtitled "Ryan Wesley Ruth Also Hated Putin, Wanted to Kill Him, Too".

SOFIA-SKOPJE SCANDAL OVER FLAGS DISPLAY

In a comment for Trud, Kostadin Filipov dismisses as "nonsense" North Macedonia's arguments that the lack of that country's flag in a photo showing Presidents Rumen Radev of Bulgaria and Gordana Siljanovska of North Macedonia breached the pre-agreed protocol. The author sees this as an attempt to lay the blame on Bulgaria so as to blunt the criticisms coming from the opposition at home. "This is an invented and overinflated scandal without any basis whatsoever," Filipov argues. He notes that the photos accompanying the announcement of Siljanovska's office do not include a picture of her send-off at the entrance of the President's Administration in Sofia, when she literally rushed to hug and kiss Radev and Vice President Iliana Iotova.

Former Bulgarian foreign minister Ivaylo Kalfin said on bTV Tuesday morning that "strictly, protocol does not set such a requirement and the Macedonian demand is unfounded. There is no provocation. There is nothing for us to apologize for. They keep using a rhetoric that is slightly stronger than normal talking. In my opinion, we should not pay attention to them. This is an invented issue." "Still, when an official institution is visited, the protocol of the President's Administration could have displayed the Macedonian flag. This would not be any breach of the rules. A good host could do it, but it is not at all obligatory," Kalfin added.

RECOVERY AND RESILIENCE PLAN

In the Bulgarian National Television morning show on Tuesday, Petar Ganev of the Institute for Market Economics and financial expert Lyubomir Datsov analyzed the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the funds that Bulgaria expects to receive under it. "We have been going around in circles for three years now," Ganev pointed out. "The current rather political talking is about who is to blame, who failed to implement something. This is actually a very small part of the problem because even if this was done, in my estimate the absorption rate under that plan would not have been higher than 40%," Datsov said for his part.

POVERTY LINE

Nova TV has rounded up opinions about the increase of the poverty line in 2025. Shteryo Nozharov, an economic adviser of the Bulgarian Industrial Association, estimates that nearly 1 million people in this country get money on the basis of the poverty line. Employers insist that labour productivity should be taken into account when welfare payments are determined. "The financing for the judicial system has been increasing for years now, but they don't work better and business is not more pleased with them," Nozharov argued. Household incomes and expenditures have levelled, which means that the poverty line keeps pace with the overall income level, economist Stoyan Panchev commented. According to Startup Association Director Dobromir Ivanov, people's real incomes cannot be identified because of the large share of the grey economy.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Trud runs a two-page interview with former Bulgarian MEP Prof. Dr Vladko Panayotov, a prominent scientist in the sphere of ecology and climate change mitigation. Panayotov is afraid that the EU green transition is not perceived by the whole mankind and above all by the main polluter countries. He is concerned that Europe does not propose solutions and merely imposes "musts" and parameters. Panayotov argues that carbon neutrality by 2050 is an unrealistic target. "Europe is responsible for a small share of the total pollution emissions while, at the same time, it is an initiator and a driving force of the 'saving of the world': that is why the solution, too, should come from Europe," the interviewee insists. In his opinion, the closure of coal-fired power plants in the foreseeable future will be a mistake that cannot be corrected afterwards. He believes that carbon emissions can be reduced to admissible levels by using natural gas from coal gasification, eliminating the emissions of heavily polluting enterprises like coal-fired power plants and large combustion plants, harnessing hydrogen wherever possible, and building new safe nuclear power plants.

EXPAT BULGARIANS' EDUCATION

A page-long story in Duma says that more than 32,000 children of the 3 million strong Bulgarian expatriate community will attend 396 Bulgarian Sunday schools in 43 countries on six continents during the 2024-2025 school year, tutored by 2,000-plus teachers. Most of these schools are in Europe: 331, of which 52 in Spain, 51 in Moldova, 50 in Ukraine, and 44 in the UK. Some of the rest are in North America (44) and Asia (7). In 2024, the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science will invest nearly BGN 16 million in 268 Bulgarian schools abroad for instruction in Bulgarian language and literature, history and geography of Bulgaria, and supplementary activities for familiarization with and preservation of Bulgarian traditions. The report in Duma provides details about the Bulgarian Sunday school in Kuwait.

CHILDREN'S CYBERBULLYING

24 Chasa leads on an interview with safe internet expert Antoaneta Vasileva, who says that a record 46,300 alerts were received from children and parents on the cyberbullying helpline 124-123 in 2023 about online sexual exploitation by paedophiles (95% of the total), phishing fraud, theft of accounts and personal data, and financial abuses. In the first quarter of 2024, alerts have increased to over 33,000 for March alone. "Cyberbullying remains the top complaint, but it is not criminalized," the expert points out. The bullies are most often peers in the victim's neighbourhood or classmates. Paedophiles cut across the spectrum: from well-paid professionals in high positions to losers. Asked how children be better protected in cyberspace, Vasileva advises parents to install control apps on all devices used by their children. The story continues on two full inside pages. Since the beginning of 2024, a total of 240 pretrial proceedings have been instituted in Sofia alone for inflicting bodily harm in domestic violence context, and ten persons were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment on such charges in the first half of the year. As many as 3,035 permanent and immediate protection orders were issued between January 1 and July 1, up from 2,355 from the like period of 2023.