site.btaUPDATED Campaign Highlights: Sept. 11

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Mustafa Karadayi said in Ruse (on the Danube) that his party’s mission is to be keepers of peace, stability, and security in Bulgaria. That is why the MRF is obliged to guarantee and defend democracy here. Meeting with young local people, he said the MRF is not making policies for youths but with youths. Top-of-the-list candidate Alizan Yahova said her party knows what the problems are in the country and how to solve them. “We are thinking about the hard winter and the future. The MRF is the most responsible and right decision to guarantee citizens’ and businesses’ security,” she said.

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National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria (NFSB) leader Boris Yachev presented the coalition’s candidate list for 15th constituency in Pleven (Northern Bulgaria) at the BTA press club there, noting all candidates are popular individuals with stable public support. Top-of-the-list candidate Plamen Mirchev listed as NFSB’s priorities education, the fight against domestic crime, and putting a stop to villages’ depopulation. Nikolay Ivanchev, second on the list, noted the need for full revision in the energy sector. Margarit Mitsev, Deputy Chair of NFSB’s coalition partner Society for New Bulgaria party, said it is high time to show in Bulgaria that people with new ideas are coming who give a new meaning to patriotism: "work, work and only work".

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Together with party candidates from the Razgrad constituency, Continue the Change Co-chair Kiril Petkov met and spoke with citizens and supporters in the northeastern town. Petkov said that his party tried to solve problems in a hurry, but this time they have specifically set goals that will be reached one after the other. Locals posed questions related to local issues to top candidate Marin Shishev. Earlier, Petkov met with locals from the nearby town of Tsar Kaloyan, who complained about the poor condition of the riverbed where millions were supposed to be spent. The locals also raised the issue of wood supply in the area which, according to Petkov, is one of the tools of local government control over the population, because it is done in a selective manner by the authorities. He said that such practices must be stopped.

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Bulgarian Rise leader Stefan Yanev and former regional development minister Violeta Komitova presented in Yambol (Southeastern Bulgaria) the list of local MP candidates topped by lawyer Evgeni Gospodinov, and met with business representatives and citizens. Yanev said it is time to leave behind the practices from the past 30 years and seek what makes us stronger and leads us toward better decisions in the economic and geopolitical environment. “In  this energy and political crisis, the EU’s leadership is putting the Union in a humiliating state, away from the place it deserves. That is what we want to change,” Yanev explained. Komitova called for urgent decentralization and a common industrial zone between the regions of Yambol and Sliven by constructing a four-lane high-speed road from the Lessovo border control checkpoint to the Petoluchkata road junction.

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GERB leader Boyko Borissov told party members and supporters in Haskovo (South Central Bulgaria) that on September 14 GERB will present a large-scale plan for Bulgaria’s recovery, elaborated by the party’s teams and concerning every sphere: energy, culture, sport, tourism. The plan pays particular attention to renewable energy sources: not just solar panels and wind turbines but also dams and cascades. Top-of-the-list candidate for 29th Haskovo constituency Delyan Dobrev said there are two ways to reduce fuel prices, one of which is the State to buy cheap Urals oil, give it to Neftochim for processing and then provide traders with it.

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The sequence of the campaign highlights featured in this report follows the ballot numbers of the 29 contestants in the October 2 snap parliamentary elections.