Iliyana Yotova leads by a large margin over the other presidential candidates, and behind her stands the supporting "shadow" of the previous president Rumen Radev. This was announced to Lili Marinkova in the studio “FAKT“ and the program “Conversation“ Dimitar Denkov, professor of history of philosophy in the departments “History of Philosophy“ and “European Studies” at the Faculty of Philosophy of Sofia University.
„The presidential election race had started boringly and if it weren't for the incidents in the Black Sea, which everyone was caught up in, it would probably have continued like this. All sociological agencies point to Iliana Yotova as the leader with a fairly large margin over the next ones – the Gyurov – Kandev couple, as well as the Konstantinov – Volgin couple. Some call this couple extremely nationalistic because it relies on an electorate that could be both Russophile and Bulgarophile, both left and right, if I may say so”, shared Denkov.
„The very function of the President of Bulgaria is symbolic and he does not have much power. This is felt by the people. Apart from that, of course, behind Iliana Yotova stands the great shadow of the previous president, thanks to whom she has now become president. There are two types of shadow in Bulgarian folklore – one is the good one, the other is the white shadow. In this case, I think that this shadow is supportive until the positive expectations that there were for “Progressive Bulgaria“ and for Radev's prime ministership are exhausted. If the elections were a little later – in January or February, it is unlikely that the result in favor of Yotova would have been the same“, commented Denkov.
“There is not much time left – there are a few days left until the first vote, and after the runoff things will be clear if something fundamental does not happen. On one side was “Petrohan”, on the other &ndquo; drones, or the case of Petrich's Escobar &ndquo; in general, the topic of the early release of hostages. These things have an impact, but we see what the general picture is. The emphasis on the Petrich Escobar was removed, but if they wanted to bring something up against Yotova, they could have done so two or three years ago, because there are many people involved. Now these are just rumors like some kind of incident that would hardly change things, because a large part of the Bulgarian people are not interested or do not know about these things and they simply pass by their ears“, he added.
“In general, trust in the media is very low, including in the official media. When they see election debates that may not take place, people most often simply change the channel with the remote. The same goes for the radio. The press is absent as a serious public factor in electoral campaigns. With modern forms of communication - the Internet and new social networks like TikTok - users are not particularly interested. There are fake groups that create fake news, both with the biography of Yotova and with the biography of Gyurov. But I don't think they have much influence“, the teacher pointed out.
“Yotova has had a very long presence in Bulgarian politics, not only as a television personality, if we have to start there. Throughout her entire transition through various structures, including her long stay in the European Union, we see a fairly moderate policy from her, which could hardly be suspected of extreme Russophilia. Yotova uses quite measured language and her biggest advantage is that she is currently serving as president and as such is participating in the election campaign. She is actually a participant in Bulgarian political life, which we cannot say about Gyurov and Kandev“, concluded Dimitar Denkov.
See more of the conversation in the VIDEO.