Bulgarian Socialist Party to Elect New Leader

BSP's headquarters in Sofia, photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is to elect its new leader at the 48th Congress of BSP on Sunday.

The congress starts at 11 am at the National Palace of Culture (NDK) in Sofia and the open part of it ends at 3 pm, according to reports of Darik radio.

A total of 29 nominees compete for the post of BSP Chair.

However, the top contenders for the post are believed to be Parliament Chair Mihail Mikov, BSP Deputy Chair Maya Manolova and former Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev.

A total of 7-8 candidates to replace the current BSP Chair, Sergey Stanishev, are to take place in the election procedure, while the others expected to withdraw.

Each candidate will have 7 minutes to present their views on the future of the party. The voting will take place in voting booths.

The change of leadership of BSP was necessitated by the poor performance of the party at the European Parliament Elections on May 25, 2014.

The organization of a party congress to elect a new leader was organized at the proposal of Stanishev, Shortly after announcing that he would accept the MEP seat he had won at the European Parliament Elections, the socialist leader made clear that he would withdraw from the post of BSP Chair.

Sources close to the matter expect that the new BSP Chair will be elected in a run-off.

Sunday’s congress is also to include a presentation of the documents related to the participation of BSP in the upcoming early elections on October 5, 2014.

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