On February 7 and 8, the BSP will hold its Congress, at which we will evaluate our participation in the government, terminate the mandate of Atanas Zafirov and elect the new chairman of the party. This was stated in an interview for “Face to Face“ on bTV by the chairman of the Youth Union of the BSP, Gabriel Valkov.
He added that one of the biggest mistakes of the socialist leadership, and in particular Zafirov, was that they did not hear the voice of the rank-and-file members of the party.
We proposed an Anti-Speculation Law, a Volunteerism Law, a Student Loans Law, and we also proposed a “excess profit“ tax for banks, but none of this was adopted because our partners in the government did not ask for it. This was not equivalent partnership, and our chairman Atanas Zafirov did not take any action to defend our leftist policies, explained Valkov.
He also recalled that the BSP National Council had given a mandate to enter into a government with GERB and ITN and with the parliamentary support of APS, but after the withdrawal of Dogan's party and the arrival of MRF-New Beginning as part of the ruling majority, Zafirov did not request a mandate from the party bodies to decide whether the BSP would remain or withdraw from power.
„The government cannot be governed by two people (Borisov and Peevski) through the media. However, we did not see any reaction from the BSP leadership, because we did not agree to such a deal“, Valkov emphasized, referring to the inclusion of Delyan Peevski and MRF-New Beginning in securing parliamentary support.
The young socialist assured that there was no way BSP should enter into a new coalition with GERB and DPS-New Beginning, noting that the protests of the people in the squares were directed precisely against Borisov and Peevski, who, in his words, “determined where the government should go“. As for President Radev, if he appears in the elections with his party, he replied that he sees the BSP more as a partner in government.
Gabriel Valkov did not rule out the possibility of entering the race for the next chairman of the BSP, if the local structures vote for him.
“The BSP must have a new path, new faces and a new political platform“, he explained.
When asked for his opinion on the introduction of a 100 percent machine vote, Valkov replied that “the less we touch the Electoral Code, the better“.