site.btaGERB Leader: Best Decision Was to Form Centre-Right Coalition with Democratic Bulgaria, Now MRF-New Beginning Is Left's New Leader

GERB leader Boyko Borissov Thursday told journalists that the best thing to do was to make a stable centre-right coalition together with Democratic Bulgaria (DB), with him as prime minister and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria leader Atanas Atanasov as National Assembly Chairman. Borissov was commenting on Wednesday's statement by Atanasov that the DB had closed the door to GERB with a kick so that they would not kiss Borissov's hand.

Democratic Bulgaria is a centre-right coalition between Democrats for Strong Bulgaria and Yes, Bulgaria. In the National Assembly, DB is part of the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC - DB) parliamentary group but negotiated independently with GERB-UDF on the formation of a regular government. The negotiations ended abruptly on January 5, but shortly after a governance agreement was reached without DB.

Borissov also told journalists on Thursday that at the moment, the Left has a new leader: MRF - New Beginning. He added that his political force is the only one left with its centre-right policies, which makes their work extremely difficult. "DB, which I know and which think like us, have unfortunately been drowned by Continue the Change in their coalition and back at the time of the assemblage [the regular government of 2023-2024 between CC-DB and GERB-UDF], only left policies were made, otherwise the government would have broken down," the GERB leader said, describing that as concerning.

Taking a question, he said he has no information on how the preparation of the governance programme is going. "After DB and CC, especially [CC co-leader] Kiril Petkov, said that their biggest success was Borissov not being prime minister, for weeks they insisted and asked for a leadership meeting and I kept refusing them, because since they do not accept me as prime minister, they do not accept me as leader, now let them deal with it on their own," Borissov commented.

In relation to Wednesday's statement by North Macedonia's Prime Minister, Borissov called it "an absolute provocation" and said "they should not be paid any attention". In his words, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry reacted very well.