'Socialist Beer' Adds Appeal to Traditional Buzludzha Fest

A "Socialist Beer" is being featured at the traditional Mount Buzludzha fest held by Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) members, activists, followers and sympathizers this Sunday.

The year 2014 is the 124th anniversary since the BSP was set up. Private national bTV station reports that the beer, brewed specially for the socialist party, is available for just BGN 1.20 (EUR 0.60).

There have been keynote speeches by both Mihail Mikov, who has been heading the BSP for just over a year (he was elected at the end of July 2014) and his predecessor Sergey Stanishev, currently head of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and a member of the European Parliament.

Speaking to an audience of around 50 000, Mikov announced the beginning of the campaign for local elections that are due this autumn.

"BSP is a national party, a true party. Over the past 25 years lavish projects have been set up in various laboratories with the single goal of convincing people that selling politics is like selling washing powder and that left and right do not matter," he told the cheering multitude.

"Tens of thousands of us are here to say from this peak that left and right do matter, it has mattered for 124 years," Mikov added.

Stanishev, for his part, urged on socialists to return "ailing" Europe to its social roots.

In his words, this should also happen in Bulgaria. He described the current government as belonging to the status quo and aimed at just "consuming power".

The meeting comes as the BSP is going through it hardest time in year, with results from the past few elections that prompt some political scientists to describe what was once Bulgaria's biggest party as a "medium" electoral force with results ranging between 15 and 20 percent.