Bulgaria Political Briefing: the RESULTS from the EU ELECTIONS PUT BULGARIAN SOCIALIST PARTY INTO INTERNAL POLITICAL CRISIS Evgeniy Kandilarov

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 19, No. 1 (BG)

June 2019

Bulgaria political briefing: THE RESULTS FROM THE EU ELECTIONS PUT BULGARIAN SOCIALIST PARTY INTO INTERNAL POLITICAL CRISIS Evgeniy Kandilarov

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THE RESULTS FROM THE EU ELECTIONS PUT BULGARIAN SOCIALIST PARTY INTO INTERNAL POLITICAL CRISIS

The results from just passed elections for the EU parliament caused a deep crisis within the Bulgarian Socialist Party and especially in the government of the socialists. No matter of the fact that the Party has won one more mandate compared with the number of the previous representatives of the BSP in Brussel, the political loss that the socialist party suffered from their main political opponents in the face of the ruling party of the prime minister Boiko Borisov is extremely heavy, especially against the background of the preliminary forecasts and most of the sociological studies that have been showing even a certain lead of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and real chances for winning the elections. Surprisingly, finally the Party failed to motivate voters to go to the polls on 26 May and resulted in them trailing far behind the centre- right GERB.

What was the reason for this result and what will be the consequences for the Party from it? The reasons behind are both internal within the Party as well as external and objective as the fact that traditionally the Bulgarian population doesn’t feel like to vote for the EU Parliament since generally it doesn’t understand and eventually doesn’t care so much about the Brussel’s institutions such as EU Parliament and the representatives in it. This is caused by the fact of the feeling of the population that it is something abstract and far away from the real hot issues existing in the life of the ordinary people in the country. That’s why traditionally not so many Bulgarians are very much motivated to vote for this kind of elections which usually causes a very low voter turnout for the EU elections. This is valid for the BSP electorate as well and even more essential since a large number of the people voting for the party are over middle age people who are even more sceptic and less than little interested in the EU Institutions and their real role and significance for the living conditions in the country as well as the most painful social-economic issues in the Bulgarian society. Leaving aside this external and more or less objective reasons for the lack of voter’s mobilization for the BSP on the elections there are much more serious and deep internal problems within the Party itself. They have appeared on the surface during the electoral campaign before the elections and now after the loss suffered have exploded heavily, causing a great internal crisis in the BSP government.

One of the indicators for the growing internal Party crisis that had its reflection in the electoral results was the moment when during the campaign the BSP leader Kornelia Ninova has proposed that the Party had to exclude Party of European Socialists president Sergei Stanishev and two other sitting BSP MEPs from its list of candidates for the May 26 2019 European Parliament elections. This move came after months of tensions between Ninova and Stanishev, who led the BSP from 2001 to 2014 and was prime minister in Bulgaria’s tripartite coalition government from 2005 to 2009. The proposal was the subject of a BSP plenum meeting that proceeded for several hours in the afternoon of April 14. The omission of Stanishev was made public ahead of an April 14 national council meeting, with Stanishev describing Ninova’s list as a “great gift to GERB”. That time Stanishev also said that there was a tendency to turn the BSP into “GERB II”, a party focused solely on its leader. Reports noted that Stanishev was left off the BSP list even though he had got the most nominations from party structures. The move by Ninova against Stanishev and others from the former BSP establishment is a continuation of the process she embarked on since becoming party leader in May 2016. Ahead of Bulgaria’s 2017 early parliamentary elections, she had party rules rewritten to prevent some long-standing BSP MPs from being eligible to be candidates for re- election. Finally the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Kornelia Ninova, has failed in her attempt to exclude Party of European Socialists president Sergei Stanishev from the BSP list of candidates for European Parliament elections. This was the outcome of a plenum, which lasted for a marathon 11 hours on April 14. The length of the meeting was indicative of the indignation at Ninova’s attempt to push Stanishev out. This very key moment during the electoral campaign of the BSP has been shown that there are serious internal problems in the BSP existing which may result in the resistance of part of the party members or such as traditionally vote for the Party to support the current government of the Party in the face of Kornelia Ninova and her team presented in the executive body of the Party. So finally the reason for the electoral loss of the party could be found out partly in this very obviously existing lack of unity within the Party members and even worse the existing strong internal party opposition which is very much willing to take a revenge over the current government of the party led my Kornelia Ninova. Another failure of the BSP was that in the course of the campaign, it has not been clear what the party platform is for these elections – that it is for a social European Union in which citizens, the peoples find support for overcoming poverty, inequality. Instead of pointing out the advantages of its platform and political ideas BSP almost fully focused on a few scandals, at the expense of a much clearer stance on the key issues of the future of the EU.

The registered election loss of the BSP played the role of a catalyst of intra-party tension, which led to a serious political crisis within the party immediately after the elections. The leader of the party Kornelia Ninova unexpectedly has resigned announcing that she is taking full responsibility for the party’s election results. The chairman of the BSP election headquarters for the European elections, Georgi Svilensky resigned as well. Ninova announced her decision on a plenary session of the National council of the BSP two days after the elections at 28 of May. She said that an emergency congress should be convened to launch a procedure for direct election of party leader. According to the BSP’s Statute, in the case of early termination of office, the chair’s duties are performed by a deputy chairman appointed by a decision of the National Council. Kornelia Ninova was elected leader of the BSP on 8 May 2016 with a four-year term of office. At the same time Ninova announced that she will definitely run again in the elections for a new leader of the Party. The congress has been planned for 16 of June. In the meantime, launch a nomination campaign within the Party as well as the procedure for the adoption of rules and procedures for electing a chairperson under the new Statute of the Party, by direct election. Ninova announced before the National council that If they accept this decision, the current leadership of the Party will offer a detailed analysis of election results, election reports, preparation for local elections, nominations for the leader of the party and by the end of July the new chairman has to be elected. According to her that should be the right moves from now on in order BSP to be able to focus on the local campaign in August, September and to try to win the local elections as revenge as the just suffered lost. The opposition against Kornelia Ninova in the party believes that the resignation is simply a maneuver from the leadership with which it tries to further stabilize its positions Many of the opponents of Ninova in the National council believe that she will go on cleansing the party through the conferences she said she would hold to enter into a full inter party election cycle so this possibly aims to reformat the composition of the Congress, as well as the composition of the National Council, which can be done after such kind of election cycle. This will be extraordinary, because the BSP governing executive bodies' election should normally be after one year. The very fact that the current leadership speeds up this process and says that at these conferences, the responsibility of the individual party organizations for what they have done and what they do is to be seen shows that there will be a lot of changes within the BSP on may different levels. So finally this will lead to replacement of the party's leading cadres in a way that will enable the current leadership already reelected to run it without any contradiction and different opinion.

In addition, the opposition to Ninova states that this way of resigning speaks of insincerity, of unconsciousness of personal responsibility for the failure, since Ninova claims that everything was just right - the political activity, the campaign and rejects absolutely all the criticisms made to her, mentioning only in passing that there may have been mistakes for which she assumes the full responsibility, which, according to the opposition, is simply a set-up and a tactic maneuver. The main accusations against Ninova are not only related to the election results but also to the fact that this leadership is totally alien to the idea of correcting the way the decision- making model is operating at that moment, namely, without having really collectively made decisions, with which to engage the entire National Council. Instead, Ninova first announces what will happen, then comes to the National Council and says, "Let us now decide!" What will be the result of the crisis in the Bulgarian Socialist Party is yet to be seen. It is particularly important that all this will affect the condition of the party in negative way and the possibility of a new mobilization, this time for the local elections in the autumn which are extremely important since the local government is the basis of every political party influence and stability. According to some of the supporters of the party's current leadership, the ongoing crisis and the procedure of nominating and electing a new leadership will shake the party seriously and will be extremely demobilizing ahead of local elections. So, in their view, this resignation is extremely untimely and comes in the most inappropriate time. Others, as has already been emphasized, think that this move of the leadership is just a tactics with which Kornelia Ninova seeks to get a clear and ultimate mandate if she is re-elected. In any case, however, it is clear that the condition of the largest opposition party is in Bulgaria is extremely unstable and within the party there are dynamic and turbulent processes which at this stage have a negative impact in terms of political positions of the party in the country, its influence and political weight, which make it week and unable to be definitely considered as a leftwing alternative of the center-right government of the country.