site.btaBorissov Insists GERB Has a Future, Questions CC's Integrity

Dismissing Continue the Change (CC) comments about GERB and himself, GERB leader Boyko Borissov Thursday insisted that his party has a future and questioned CC's integrity. Borissov talked to journalists on Thursday in the parliamentary lobby, commenting on Kiril Petkov’s resignation as CC co-chair and Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria MP.

Borissov said that “this was a personal act in a party". "I don't let them interfere in my party. I don't interfere in others,” he added.

Responding to Petkov's call for him to resign because this way there will be a future for GERB, Borissov said that it was not even serious to comment on the words. “I have been GERB’s leader for 20 years now, and it [the party] still has a future. They wanted to scrape us out, they arrested us, they beat people. As God says, “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” he added. 

The "scraping" was a reference to CC campaign promise about "scraping out the GERB model" of years ago. It is not clear what "they beat people" referred to.

As for the "they arrest us", Borissov refers to his own arrest in 2022, under the CC-dominated government. Borissov was promptly released, the arrest was later declared illegal by the court and Kiril Petkov is now tried for unlawfully ordering the arrest of Borissov, his former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov and GERB PR officer Sevdalina Arnaudova.

“That’s exactly what they’ve done. I don't care about these people, I saw what they were like back in the "assemblage", now the public has seen it too, and their supporters have seen it,” Borissov said.

“Assemblage” is widely used to describe the previous parliamentary majority between GERB-UDF, Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which ran Bulgaria from June 2023 to April 2024.

“President [Rumen] Radev imposed them, but then he was the first to realize what he had done and said: "we will survive this charlatanism too,” one day”, Borissov said.

He quoted President Rumen Radev as saying back in 2022 that he had been the first to have been duped by Assen Vassilev and Kiril Petkov and called them “charlatans”.

In 2021 Petkov and Vassilev were ministers in Radev’s caretaker cabinet.

"The strongest indicator was when Save Sofia left the coalition, it was already clear that they knew things that we could only suspect," Boyko Borissov added.

The Save Sofia political formation left the three-party coalition with Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) in the Sofia City Council and withdrew its support from Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev in April.

Asked about a joint presidential candidate nomination of the democratic community and whether CC are eligible as a partner led by Assen Vassilev, Borissov said: “The voters who want a European path, a strong, NATO state, who are in this sector of the political spectrum, where our voters and the voters of CC and DB are, those who in favour of the euro area, for NATO, together with Movement for Rights and Freedoms - New Beginning, these voters need a victory in the presidential election. Whether the candidate is Assen Vassilev, whether it is me, these people need to have a direction, we must not allow them to become completely disappointed so as to refuse to go out to vote.”