Four more candidates - Gabriel Valkov, Trifon Panchev, Gennady Sabkov and Anton Kutev, announced that they are withdrawing from the race for BSP chairman. Earlier today, Sergey Stanishev also withdrew his candidacy during the open part of the meeting of the 51st BSP Congress.
Three other candidates announced before the forum that they would not participate in the leadership race. Thus, a total of eight of the seventeen candidates admitted to the direct election for the chairman of the BSP withdrew from the race.
In his speech at the congress, the chairman of the Youth Union of the BSP, Gabriel Valkov, thanked the organizations that nominated him for chairman of the BSP and withdrew his candidacy. He wished success to the other candidates and stated: "Only together can we do it".
The mayor of Dryanovo, Trifon Panchev, also withdrew from the race for chairman of the BSP. According to him, the only healthy thing left in the party are the mayors who are close to the people. We must not allow the collective beginning in the BSP to be trampled, he said. Panchev called on the delegates to support the mayors as members of the BSP National Council in the upcoming vote.
During his speech at the congress, Gennady Sabkov also withdrew from the race for the leadership post. I am a straightforward person and I tell myself everything, and now is the time for the flexible and streamlined, he said.
Anton Kutev also announced that he would not participate in the race for the party chairman from now on. He pointed out that if he had to run for chairman during the Congress, he would not have done so. According to him, it is not so important who will be the chairman, but what the National Council and the Executive Bureau of the BSP will be like, the political face of the party and what it can accomplish in the next few months.
We need a clear focus on what the real tasks of the BSP are, he said and called on political action to justify the requests they have made. If there is anything that can pull the BSP from here on out, it is the Youth Union, believes Kutev and called for as many young people as possible to be promoted to the National Council.
Before the congress, the chairman of the BSP-Sofia Ivan Takov, the deputy chairman of the National Assembly and chairman of the parliamentary group of the “BSP-United Left“ Dragomir Stoynev and the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Ivan Ivanov withdrew from the race for leadership.
Among the remaining nine out of seventeen candidates to lead the BSP are the acting chairman of the party and deputy prime minister in the “Zhelyazkov“ cabinet Atanas Zafirov, the BSP organizational secretary and Minister of Labor and Social Policy Borislav Gutsanov, the BSP deputy chairman and MEP Kristian Vigenin, and the former chairman of BSP-Sofia Kaloyan Pargov.
During his speech at the congress, Kaloyan Pargov stated that he remains in the race and called for the choice to be wise. If we elect a minister as prime minister, we will make the BSP dependent on the actions of the government, he said. In order to regain trust, we should not allow the coalition to determine the BSP's political line, Pargov added.