Sociologist Andrey Raichev believes that presidential candidate Andrey Gyurov is in a losing position in the race for “Dondukov“ 2, mostly because he avoids talking about essential political topics.
“Gyurov completely avoids political topics, and these are the war in Ukraine, gender ideology, immigrants... On which of these issues exactly can Gyurov say anything? He has nothing to say, except “I'm cool“. Yes, he's cool, but his political language is neutered; his platform has been taken away. Yotova, on the other hand, is in a stronger position and can speak on political topics,“ commented Raichev on bTV.
According to him, Andrey Gyurov's team “doesn't hope so much for their victory“ as for a failure and “own goal“ by Iliyana Yotova.
His colleague Genoveva Petrova from the “Alpha Research“ agency distanced herself from Raichev's opinion and said that there are actually topics that Andrey Gyurov can and should speak on, citing as an example the risk of the concentration of power in the hands of one political entity.
Andrey Raichev immediately opposed her, stating that with this statement “Yotova's failure is once again being sought“. And he added that, in his opinion, Gyurov is overdoing his anti-Russian rhetoric.
In turn, Petrova replied that in reality both Radev's government and President Yotova have closer positions to the Kremlin than to Bulgaria's European partners.
In other words, Petrova expects the main intrigue in the presidential elections to be between Andrey Gyurov and Iliana Yotova, playing it safe again and explaining that surprises are always possible.
According to her, the majority of GERB supporters will listen to Boyko Borisov and will not support any presidential candidate in the first round. But she added that she expects a part of them to support Gyurov because of his firm position on the country's Euro-Atlantic orientation.
Regarding the participation of “Vazrazhdane“ in the October vote, Petrova predicted that the party would harm Yotova electorally, but only if it ran a strong election campaign.
Regarding Borisov's decision not to nominate a presidential candidate pair for the elections, she explained that in this way GERB "paid the electoral price" for the failure of the parliamentary elections in April.
Andrei Raichev, on the other hand, does not expect "Vazrazhdane" to bring any surprises in these elections and stressed that it will be crucial who the GERB voters will vote for.
According to his predictions, around 1.1 million voters will vote for Iliyana Yotova, mostly supporters of Rumen Radev and “Progressive Bulgaria“, while Gyurov expects to attract the support of around 450 thousand people.
“Overall, I do not expect electoral storms. For the moment, Yotova is playing it very strongly, and Gyurov is playing it very strangely“, explained Andrey Raichev.