site.btaUPDATED Atanas Zafirov Elected Bulgarian Socialist Party Chair
The 51st Congress of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Sunday elected Atanas Zafirov as BSP Chair. Zafirov, who is acting BSP Chair and Deputy Prime Minister, got 422 votes, while the other candidate in the runoffs, Labour and Social Policy Minister Borislav Gutsanov, received 365 votes.
The newly elected BSP Chair said that the party should get back its position of a leading political force, which will be the main task for his team. "From here onward, the BSP will not have a leader but a chairperson; I am one of you," Zafirov told the Socialist delegates. The BSP will be a party with collective decisions, he added.
Asked by journalists whether he would take his rivals in the race for the post into his team, Zafirov said that would be decided by the BSP National Council. "I thanked all my opponents. I believe that this election campaign, including in the media and meetings in the country, showed that the BSP is alive, changed, democratic, ideological," said the newly elected Chairman. He noted that he had gleaned many useful ideas from his opponents' campaigns for office, which he planned to implement. "Of course, I hope to keep the team, they are first and foremost my comrades, friends and partners," Zafirov added.
From now on, the BSP will regain the mentality of a winner and fight for a leading place in political life, he also said.
Asked whether the appeal of the election result in one of the BSP bureaus was the first sign of tension between him and Gutsanov, Zafirov said: "There is no tension, everything is within the permissible limits". He pointed out that the competition was contested, and when there is a competition, there is emotion, there is adrenaline. "From tomorrow we get to work, expect good news from the BSP," Zafirov added.
According to Zafirov, this congress was loaded with many hopes and expectations, and it fulfilled all these expectations, it was calm, democratic and, most importantly, optimistic. It is important that the party demonstrates unity and self-confidence, he said. Zafirov announced that the BSP will no longer have a leader, but a chairman of the National Council.
On Saturday, the BSP Congress amended the BSP Statute whereby scrapping the direct election of BSP Chairperson and introducing election by Congress.
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 Zafirov, Gutsanov, MEP Kristian Vigenin, and former head of BSP in Sofia Kaloyan Pargov. Ultimately, there were runoffs on Sunday between the top two candidates for the post, Zafirov and Gutsanov.
At the start of the Congress on Saturday, Zafirov reported on the BSP National Council's activity. He 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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