The focus today is on the centenary. BSP has a new chairman. Krum Zarkov is an unfinished name. Where is BSP going - for this and for the overall political and geopolitical situation - comment by Sergey Stanishev - former prime minister, former chairman of the BSP and the Party of European Socialists.
The new chairman - will he be the savior or the scapegoat? What if the BSP does not enter the next parliament?
I think it will be neither one nor the other, because everyone in the BSP understands that both successes and failures do not depend only on the leader. They depend on the team. We remain the only party that remains authentically democratic. Tell me in which of the other parties a leader is elected through competition, through debates. There is none. Neither GERB, nor PP-DB, nor other parties. And this is a serious advantage of the BSP. But what is important is what I felt - a different spirit at this same congress a year ago.
What was different?
Back then, it was a congress of adjustment and integration into power and the distribution of influence. And there were very ugly internal pictures. Yesterday, the congress had a different spirit - a spirit of a very acute sense of the responsibility of each and every one in the BSP for whether the BSP will survive. A congress that showed a zest for fighting. I even formulated a possible slogan for the BSP election campaign - It cannot be done without the left. Think about it. If in a democratic country there is no strong left - then the state will limp. The left is not reduced to social - to pensions, to benefits. It is the bearer of the spirit of justice.
One year, the BSP, in the perception of society, became a button on the coattails, a junior partner who is subordinate. Yesterday it was shown that the BSP is ready to fight for its values. This is also evident in the election of Krum Zarkov. We are threatened not to enter parliament, but now I am much more optimistic about the future of the BSP.
Who took Zafirov's head - the participation in the government with GERB or the photo of him entering Peevski's office?
The BSP has fallen into a strange schizophrenic state in recent weeks, because it gave a positive assessment of our participation in the government and at the same time demanded the resignation of the chairman. Everyone took their own steps - either backwards like Atanas Zafirov, or to the side. Some took steps forward like Krum Zarkov. This threat that I shared a few weeks ago that this congress could turn into a fratricidal clash did not materialize. The BSP showed that it has the will to be a party with character, not to be subordinate to anyone.
And was it subordinate?
Well, that was the impression that it was definitely not leading.
To whom?
To those who were leading in the government, because the initiative was not in the BSP.
Now all eyes are on Rumen Radev and Iliyana Yotova. Rumen Radev is the BSP's main opponent in these elections. Now with the election of Krum Zarkov, can there be such a rapprochement?
Huge expectations of society are focused on the figure of Rumen Radev - the instrument of the people who will sweep away this status quo.
According to Sergey Stanishev, it would be a mistake if the BSP repeated this with President Radev. The BSP may and will certainly partner with his political project in the next parliament on various topics that are generally democratic, but it cannot be automatic support for everything, he added.