Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
In 2019, Boyko Borisov claimed that with a 90% rating and a donkey to tie as an MP, they would elect him. Seven years later, the rating is different - and there is no one to tie him. GERB is being carefully rejuvenated - so that nothing at the top changes. Three regional coordinators entered the party leadership, the old deputies of leader Boyko Borisov remained in their places, and the promised “peaceful change” continues to train.
Borisov retained his two deputies Tomislav Donchev and Daniel Mitov, as well as the remaining core of the Executive Committee. The heads of the structures in Sofia, Varna and Stara Zagora - Dimitar Vuchev, Stoyan Petkov and Radostin Tanev - joined it in the places vacated by Delyan Dobrev, Vladimir Temelkov and the mayor of Stara Zagora Zhivko Todorov, who left in the spring.
But the new members were not produced by the academy “New Minds“, which Borisov presents as the personnel reserve of the future GERB. They come from the existing local apparatus, and Petkov and Vuchev were proposed by Denitsa Sacheva, and Tanev - by Zhivko Todorov.
A cowardly renewal
The real renewal has been postponed for now. Borisov promised to continue training new personnel - civil engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers and directors - by the end of the year, who would one day hold real positions and grow in the party. GERB is supposedly preparing for the time after Borisov, but Borisov himself is not preparing his successor. He is replacing the second echelon, without opening the question of the first.
And before the presidential elections - the first major political test for the party after the serious loss on April 19, the leader announced that GERB would participate only if it could be first. “GERB is not an Olympic Committee, let's participate because we have to. We will participate where we can become first, and not go to a runoff”, Borisov told the delegates to the GERB National Assembly.
Thus, the party, which was an “machine for winning elections”, began its renewal rather timidly by deciding which elections it would not lose. Borisov's condition is absurd: GERB will participate only if it can achieve something that no candidate in the history of direct presidential elections in Bulgaria has achieved - a victory in the first round. It seems to justify in advance the refusal to fight.
Risk diversification
Previously, GERB could afford to underestimate the presidency because it held the government. The presidential institution is a power without a treasury. And Borisov's party was created not just to represent, but to manage and distribute the budget, public procurement, resources to feed local party networks.
Now, since it is outside the executive branch, the presidency could give GERB a national tribune and an institutional center against Radev's power. But is that exactly what Borisov wants?
GERB is not behaving like a fierce opposition to the cabinet, which has retained quite a few of its cadres in the government. This is also evident from Tomislav Donchev's words at the party forum: "Don't pray for Radev's failure. Radev's failure is a failure for Bulgaria." Behind the statesmanlike formulation, one can also see the political caution of a party that criticizes the government, but does not burn bridges to it.
The battle for local government is important for Borisov
Participating and losing, especially if it does not reach a runoff, also means that GERB will receive new public proof of its decline. Just a year before the local elections, such a result would demotivate the structures. Namely, in the fall of 2027, the party will defend its real infrastructure - local government, which it now dominates.
Delyan Dobrev, who is leaving the party leadership, objected to this defeatist logic, having built up a halo of a rebel. According to him, GERB should not only nominate its own candidate, but also have at least three suitable ones - the mayor of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov, Tomislav Donchev and former Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov. Then he expanded the list to almost the entire first row in the hall: “Whoever you catch from the first row, becomes president. And not only from the first row, but half of you“.
However, the demonstration of personnel abundance quickly ended. Donchev thanked and declared himself “too young for this job”, Nikolov had already made it clear that he would not run, and Borisov rejected the idea of GERB participating only to reach a runoff. GERB may have at least three candidates for president, but there is no candidate for the loss.
Ten days “for them to come to their senses”
Borisov once again sought a way out of this trap outside his own party - in a common candidate for the right. He continues to insist on unification, although "Continuing Change" and "Democratic Bulgaria" have repeatedly rejected his political embrace. It is unlikely that Andrey Gyurov, who is being touted as their candidate, will negotiate with GERB.
This time Borisov gave ten days "to come to his senses", after which, according to him, everyone could now congratulate the current president Iliana Yotova. It is known that she will participate in the race, and this week the name of the vice-presidential candidate will also be known. There is also a certain posture in the 10-day period: Borisov is not proposing negotiations between equal parties, but is waiting for the others to come to their senses.
His insistence has its logic, although a common candidacy seems impossible. The offer is made so that Borisov wins with both answers. If the PP and DB accept, they will in practice recognize GERB as the center of the right and erase the anti-corruption border on which they built their political identity. If they refuse, they will be accused of giving the presidency to Yotova. GERB will not be the party that did not find the courage to nominate a candidate, but the party whose reasonable plan was thwarted by its unreasonable potential partners.
What calculations is Borisov making
There is also a more practical calculation. A common candidate would distribute the risk between several formations. If Borisov wins, he will remind that it was impossible without GERB's electoral power. If he loses, the responsibility will be common, and not just another result recorded solely in his party's accounts. That is precisely why GERB insists that the candidate not only accept its votes, but also publicly “acknowledge“ its support.
But in a party built around one person, the instinct for self-preservation is not only his. At one time, the Bulgarian Communist Party also rejuvenated the apparatus by moving the second echelon and protecting the first. In the end, however, a group from the first echelon turned against the First and overthrew it - in order to maintain its power. As a former security guard for Todor Zhivkov, Borisov surely remembers this lesson.