The “hot“ political autumn has begun, and the parties are already positioning themselves before the upcoming presidential vote. However, there are still no key candidates, which makes it difficult to predict a possible runoff.
According to political scientist Assoc. Prof. Milen Lyubenov, we must wait for the final decisions of GERB and “Vazrazhdane“ in order to more clearly assess the distribution of forces. “We must wait for the final decision of GERB, as well as the candidate of “Vazrazhdane“. Then we can say with greater clarity the probabilities of a runoff“, said Lyubenov on Nova News.
According to him, Boyko Borisov's hesitation regarding GERB's participation in the presidential elections is difficult to explain, since the party leader has made several contradictory statements.
“The first statement was: “Why participate in elections that we cannot win?“, but GERB has participated in elections several times, including in 2021, when they supported Professor Gerdzhikov and it was clear that they would not win. On the other hand, just a week ago Borisov said that the vote was predetermined, and yesterday - that there could be a surprise“, commented the political scientist.
According to Lyubenov, Borisov's hesitation may be due to the fear of a weak result for the GERB candidate. “I think what worries Mr. Borisov is that a GERB candidate could get a fairly low result, which would indicate a serious electoral decline for the party“, he pointed out.
Lyubenov also commented on the presidential candidate pair Andrey Gyurov - Kandev. According to him, their appearance is not a surprise, but the key question is what campaign they will choose.
“I think that the presidential candidate pair Gyurov-Kandev is not a surprise, but the question is what campaign they will run. Will they continue with the video materials on social networks, or will they focus on a real political campaign in which political theses between the candidates will clash“, said the political scientist.
According to Lyubenov, although the presidential vote is a majority vote, the party factor remains decisive.
“The decisive vote is the party vote. "We must also consider the current political situation. The vote is majority, but party support is decisive - that's exactly why Iliyana Yotova is the favorite," he said.