site.btaUPDATED BSP Holds Congress, Scraps Election of Chairperson through Direct Vote
The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) holds its 51st Congress this weekend. On the agenda is the election of BSP Chairperson, National Council and Control Commission.
On Saturday, the Congress amended the BSP Statute whereby scrapping the direct election of BSP Chairperson, the party's press centre told BTA. Instead, the party's leader will be elected by the Congress, the delegates decided.
Initially, there were seventeen candidates for BSP Chair, but eight withdrew their nominations before and shortly after the start of the Congress on Saturday, including former BSP chair and former Party of European Socialists president Sergei Stanishev. That left nine competing for the post, including acting Chair and Deputy Prime Minister Atanas Zafirov, Labour and Social Policy Minister Borislav Gutsanov, MEP Kristian Vigenin, and former head of BSP in Sofia Kaloyan Pargov.
Reporting on the BSP National Council's activity, acting BSP Chair Zafirov said that the BSP has lost about 770,000 voters since 2017. In the parliamentary elections from 2021 to 2024, the votes for the BSP declined in number, except in the last elections, he said. From nearly 1 million votes in the 2017 parliamentary elections, the BSP reached an electoral low of about 200,000 votes and lost its status as a major opposition force, he noted.
He noted that 60% of the lost votes in the 2017-2024 period were lost in the April 2021 elections. The BSP lost its entire periphery then and it never came back in the next elections, the acting BSP Chair said.
One of the main political mistakes was the BSP's attempt to follow primarily a foreign political programme - that of the liberal urban right, Zafirov reported. In his words, the BSP tried to turn into an anti-corruption and protest party rather than following its authentic politics.
The election results of October 2024 gave hope to the Left-wing voters that the most difficult moments were over, Zafirov said. He also considered as a success the election of BSP - United Left's nominee for National Assembly Chair.
The main goal of the BSP's participation in the current government is a way out of the political crisis, the strengthening of parliamentary democracy, the return of trust in the institutions and, above all, the restoration of statehood, he said.
National Assembly Chair Nataliya Kiselova told the Congress that the restoration of confidence in the BSP today goes through one main point, and that is the people's problems. People want clean water, clean food, affordable electricity, peace in Europe and the world, an adequate European Union, she noted.
Kiselova thanked the parliamentary group that continues to stand by her in "this very multi-faced National Assembly". "I wish you a successful congress, to come out of it united and for the BSP to once again take its rightful place - to solve the problems of the people, to preserve statehood and the functioning of parliamentary democracy," the National Assembly Chair said.
Talking to journalists ahead of the Congress, she said that the BSP and the Left should move towards restoring statehood and parliamentarism in the good sense of the word - discussion, not bickering, and putting national issues on the agenda. Among the national issues she mentioned nuclear energy, ending illegal migration and a European future.
/DS/
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