"These elections are not only for the president. Maybe the huge chances are for Iliyana Yotova. But in my opinion, Andrey Gyurov is also playing another game, and that is to position himself as the leader of the entire liberal space. Sometimes in elections people look at the specific results, the specific goal, but the political strategy is beyond that".
This opinion was expressed to the Bulgarian National Radio by the economic analyst and leader of the "Bulgaria Can" party Kuzman Iliev.
According to him, after the presidential elections, Andrey Gyurov is preparing to head a new party on the right:
"He will try to mobilize and consolidate this space, and therefore it is very interesting to observe these elections not only for who will become president, but for how the Bulgarian political terrain will be reformatted from now on, since power is obviously going into the hands of Radev or people around him, but this cannot be a stable and balanced state, so there will be alternatives".
In the program "Above All" Kuzman Iliev noted that Boyko Borisov is giving a signal to GERB voters not to support Gyurov:
"It even comes to the paradoxical situation of a GERB MEP being in Yotova's initiative committee, which is either with Borisov's sanction, or he has dropped out of the party. For me, it's the first. For me, Borisov rather supports the idea that Gyurov, even though there is no competition in this so-called right-wing space, should not present himself very strongly and that Borisov should turn this whole conversation into the fact that he is almost the only alternative in this space".
According to him, Boyko Borisov's aspiration is to save himself politically:
"The idea is that he is almost giving a signal to society "I have come to an agreement with Radev". This is a mistake, however. In my opinion, there is no such understanding. Excessive concentration of power in your direct opponent usually leads to him nullifying you. So for me, this is a huge strategic mistake by GERB. With this move, they show that they cannot do the most important thing that a party aims for, which is to create cadres, to find public figures who can make important and responsible political decisions. They abdicate from this and admit that they are practically already insolvent in this important key function for a party".
Kuzman Iliev also commented on the upcoming budget for 2027. According to him, this issue will be left for after the presidential vote, so that it does not weigh and there is no reason for speculation. According to him, there will be no delay.
"This year too, the deficit will be lower than planned, since it is truly startling. The problem is where it can come from for the budget - in terms of external factors that Bulgaria practically does not control. The exceptional increase in the price of fuels, especially diesel, leads to a blow to agriculture, production, and the entire transport infrastructure. There are also factors that simply put pressure on Bulgarian citizens, by taking away from their income and reducing their disposable income, and these are the increase in interest rates on their loans and mortgages, and this is also largely visible in the yield on government debt. There are external factors that weigh extremely heavily on the economy, hence on the financial system and the lack of bold reforms that would say - deficits are harmful and they must be extremely controlled, even eliminated - I do not see such a type of message. This means that, unfortunately, we are leaving things to the whims of the conjuncture, and it is extremely deteriorated", he commented. And he continued:
"We are champions in the fastest growth of debt, deficits are chronic, i.e. we have no commitment that we will have a balanced budget - in the medium-term forecast, Bulgaria categorically says that it will run large deficits - they will be larger for me as a share of the economy, since it is starting to stagnate. The debt will only grow, and when the debt grows, sooner or later, rather sooner in our case, you raise taxes. It is inevitable that taxes will be raised and in my opinion it will be pushed through as a reform to dismantle the Polish tax under pressure from the IMF with the idea that the rich will pay more. The problem is that in Bulgaria there are no rich people with income - the rich are people close to power with huge public procurements and assets. But those who work are middle class and will simply have to be taxed heavily - I am against this and I categorically say that we must control costs".
Iliev emphasized that prices cannot be controlled with administrative measures, and what can be done is an environment that favors better production.