site.btaUPDATED Corruption, Judiciary, Constitutional Amendments, Ukraine Seen as Most Pressing Topics from BSP - United Left

In a statement from the rostrum at the inaugural sitting of the 51st Parliament on Monday, BSP - United Left Chair Atanas Zafirov called on the political forces to step back from their party egoism and pointed out the most pressing topics for the coalition. These are the fight against corruption, ensuring that the judiciary operates well, leaving Ukraine out of political games and discussing constitutional amendments.

There is a real danger of new elections, he added. "All of you are right, you are firm in the rightness of your own truth, but your rightness stems from the fear of losing your own electorate, and does not take into account the Bulgarian interest," Zafirov addressed at the beginning the other formations in the Parliament. He called the behaviour of the other political forces "partisan selfishness" and argued it can be ended if they take risks for the sake of the common good.

Zafirov said his coalition advises everyone to take "one step back and three forward" to overcome the crisis but stressed that those three steps forward should be clearly defined - tackling corruption, not interfering with the judicial branch and not involving Ukraine in political games.

BSP - United Left's Chair urged the political forces to take down their "weapons" as if they attack each others with leaked records and through the media and parliamentary tribune, there is no way to to build a framework of a clean state and a clean judiciary that is in the national interest.

There is one more red line that cannot be crossed, Zafirov pointed out - Bulgaria's membership in the European Union (EU), "so I do not see any point in dividing ourselves internally into big democrats, proxies, sorosoids - we are Bulgarians," he stressed.

"I want to say clearly and categorically that the Bulgarian Socialist Party is the party that prepared Bulgaria's entry into the EU," he noted, giving this as an example of abandoning party egoism.

In the declaration, Zafirov also touched upon the topic of the protests in front of the National Theatre last week. "Don't you feel the huge societal rift, the enormous civic energy that is looking for a 'channel to explode' because the energy of the Bulgarians has not been harnessed into something productive for a long time," he said. 

The BSP - United Left Chair warned that if Bulgaria goes from election to election, the parties will exhaust the resources of their electorates. Let the next elections be at least when we clean up our own legislation and bring back justice in the distribution of powers, Atanas Zafirov said. He added that the Bulgarian left-wing remains a significant political factor, as "this election proved".

The main task of the BSP-United Left parliamentary group will be to restore citizens' trust in the institutions, its Chair promised. "We are ready to work honestly and responsibly in the name of the social idea," Zafirov said.