2024-03-25 08:35:23
Ivan Takov gathered 500 socialists from all over the country to revive the BSP
It is absurd for members of other parties to organize an intra-party movement, replied the people of Ninova
The opposition vs. Cornelia Ninova – the war in the BSP is becoming more and more fierce. 500 socialists established an intra-party movement “Buzludzha”, and 20 from “Positano” defined their meeting as “fake, with foreign parties, old faces, without new ideas”.
Seven months before the direct vote to elect a leader, the opposition of Cornelia Ninova gathered on Saturday in Hall 6 of the NDK to “brainstorm” how to revive the BSP and unite the entire left. However, the meeting turned into a wave of criticism towards Ninova – members of the National Council suspected her of trying to violate the statute in order to run for a third term. And they demanded that she be replaced.
And for the new internal movement, they chose the symbolic name “Buzludzha” – by analogy with the historical peak, on whose lawn in 1891 the founding congress of the BSDP was held, which officially marked the beginning of the socialist movement in Tsarist Bulgaria. It is no coincidence that the BSP celebrates Buzludzha to this day at the beginning of every August.
The idea for “Buzludzha” was given by the leader of BSP – Sofia, Ivan Takov. It is argued with the example of how in the local elections in the capital last year there was a large left bloc behind Vanya Grigorova and as a result she remained about 1.5% behind the current mayor Vasil Terziev.
“Let’s give ourselves the opportunity to do real, meaningful political work without relying on the ideas, initiatives and motivations of the central leadership,” Takov said. “Our work is blocked by interpersonal conflicts,” he said. (See more in the box below.)
That is why representatives of other left-wing formations, such as Maya Manolova, as well as Vanya Grigorova herself, were invited to the meeting. For the first time, two former chairmen of the BSP – Georgi Parvanov and Sergey Stanishev – met at a public forum. And in the overcrowded Hall 6 of the National Palace of Culture, which gathered socialists from all over the country, notable persons such as Petar Mutafchiev, Georgi Pirinski, Velislava Dureva, Kiril Dobrev and others were noticed.
State of a “taken over party” – this is how the MEP and former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev defined the situation in the BSP. According to him, the war in the party is destroying it and called for “the spirit of comradeship to return”. “We hate each other more than our political opponents. A broad left unification should be sought”, believes Stanishev.
“It is absurd for members of other parties to organize a movement within the BSP. Non-members of the BSP to request the convening of an extraordinary meeting of the BSP congress. This goes beyond all limits of political logic and morality” – this was the position of the Party’s Executive Bureau a day later. “Positano” explained that the question of leadership in the BSP is decided only by the directly elected members of the party. And they saw in the meeting an attempt to weaken the BSP on the threshold of new elections.
In response, some of the participants in the meeting – who were excluded from the congress last February – announced that after the expiration of the 1-year term according to the statute, they restored their membership and joined the “Buzludzha” movement as socialists.
“The only right path for the left is unification. Ninova brought the BSP to the point where there are more socialists outside the party who care for the leftist idea than in its leadership,” Maya Manolova wrote.
We cannot get along with this chairman
“We are fully aware that we cannot get along with this chairman of the BSP. We cannot talk to each other in the language of values, we cannot understand each other in the language of principles”, said the chairman of BSP – Sofia, Ivan Takov on Saturday. According to him, the party is now dying. “Our work is blocked by interpersonal conflicts,” he said, adding: BSP has become a broker to rebuild many.
Less than 8 years ago, the BSP elected the president of Bulgaria, and today the BSP is the fifth political force in the National Assembly, and in the last elections more than 4 times fewer people voted.